Just after Christmas, Husband bought me a slow cooker. I’ve been wanting one for absolutely ages, so I was super thrilled, especially as be bought me one which is 6.5l, meaning I can cook large meals and freeze some or feed a lot of people at once. I’ve been perusing various slow cooker groups on Facebook and found lots of recipes that I wanted to try, with slow cooker meatballs being one of the main ones, but a lot of the recipes I found have been American ones with ingredients that aren’t that common here in the UK, so I thought I’d modify the recipes and come up with my own! Bear in mind that this recipe makes 32-33 pretty large meatballs (I managed 5 and I have a HUGE appetite!) so you could easily halve the recipe if you’re cooking for few people or make the full batch and freeze what you don’t use.

Slow Cooker Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs Print Prep time 30 mins Cook time 4 hours Total time 4 hours 30 mins These slow-cooked meatballs are full of flavour and oozy, melted mozzarella! Author: Jayne Crammond Recipe type: Slow Cooker Cuisine: Italian Serves: 32 meatballs Ingredients 750g beef mince

300g pork sausage meat

2 balls of mozzarella

2 slices of bread, blended to make breadcrumbs (I used the knobbies from a loaf)

2 eggs

salt

basil

oregano

garlic powder

pepper

2 jars of your favourite 800g tomato-based pasta sauce (or your own home-made sauce, whichever you have time for)

Pasta of your choice to serve Instructions Place the mince and sausage meat into a large bowl and start to combine using your hands (you might want to remove your rings at this point!) Add in the breadcrumbs and eggs and continue to mash it all together with your hands, adding in about a teaspoon of each herb as you go (more or less, depending on your tastes) Squeeze your mozzarella inside a clean tea towel to remove any excess moisture and chop into cubes around half an inch square Take a dollop of your well-combined mixture and make a patty about the size of your palm and 1cm deep Place a square of mozzarella in the middle of the patty and bring the edges in, squashing the meat together to form the ball. Refrigerate for a couple of hours to help the balls retain their shape If you want to eat at around 6pm, I'd recommend starting to cook them at 2pm Place a layer of meatballs in the bottom of your slow cooker and cover in the first jar of sauce. Add another layer of meatballs and add the next jar of sauce. I dont recommend stirring at this point because you risk damaging the meatballs, but gently using a spoon you can distribute the sauce evenly to make sure everything is covered. There's no need to brown them first. Cook on LOW for 4 hours Once you're ready to serve, you may find a layer of fat which has come from the cooking meat and cheese and I just skimmed this off with a spoon before serving. 3.5.3208

Without withing to sound SUPER arrogant, these meatballs were AMAZING! Husband declared it the best thing I’ve cooked in the slow cooker to date and the kids absolutely wolfed it down. Husband and I even had a midnight snack of meatball subs made from the leftovers (DON’T JUDGE US!!), and I’d totally recommend that as an alternative serving suggestion to pasta. If you shop around and find good deals, this is a relatively cheap meal given the yield and you can season the meatballs exactly to your tastes, which is handy if you’ve got fussy eaters – Husband has requested jalapenos in his ones next time I make them!

Let me know if you use my recipe to give these a go and how they turn out, I’d love to hear about it and see your pictures.