Apricot Barbeque Party Meatballs in the Slow Cooker

The perfect sweet and smoky buffet meatballs. One of the easiest dishes you can prepare for a party, since the meatballs can be made ahead and the sauce has just two ingredients. Apricot jam and smoked barbeque sauce.

If you are European you might find this recipe a bit strange. If you are American I am sure you have heard of grape jelly meatballs. Well this is similar, but instead of chilli sauce I used smoked barbeque sauce and instead of grape jelly I used apricot jam. The meatballs are very easy to throw together from scratch, with simple but tasty ingredients. The result is juicy meatballs, coated in a slightly sweet and smoky sauce. If you like Chinese sweet and sour you’ll surely love these. I had them for dinner with rice, but I think that these babies would really shine as part of a party buffet, or an assortment of beer snacks and appetizers.

I’ve talked about mushy slow cooker meatballs before and how to avoid them, so check out this post for the tricks. If you are using defrosted minced meat you will have to use the microwave method as described below. If your meat was fresh you can freeze the meatballs for at least an hour and cook them from frozen. In that case I would suggest you use slightly more sauce and then just serve it on the side for dipping. This is because too much frozen food without enough warm ingredients to balance it out, might cause your stoneware to crack. A rare occurrence but one we need to be aware of. Now go plan that party to go with your meatballs.