Asian Meatballs

My dad’s mother, Antoinette, raised 10 kids on limited financial resources and managed to provide healthy meals while stretching her food budget.  Even now, if someone happens to stop by her home unexpectedly around lunchtime, she keeps them for a meal consisting of a soup, salad, entrée and dessert!  At the young age of 87, Grandma’s finally sharing some of her family-favorite recipes, and here’s one for Asian Saucy Meatballs that she serves over white rice.

Meatball Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 tsp Chinese 5 Spice powder
• ½ tsp each salt and pepper
• 12 saltine crackers, crushed

Sauce Ingredients:

• 1 12-ounce bottle chili sauce
• 1 cup water
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp mustard, yellow or Dijon

Meatball Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and form golf ball-size meatballs.
2. Place meatballs in a single layer in an oven-proof dish.

Sauce Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk all the ingredients.
3. Pour sauce over the meatballs, cover dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.
   

   Uncooked Meatballs

4. Serve over white rice.

6 servings, about 20 meatballs.

Note: Finished product freezes well.  Recipe can be made in a slow cooker – cook meatballs in sauce on low for 6-8 hours.  You’ll see from the uncooked meatballs photo that the onions are roughly chopped.