Grandma's Healthy Sweet and Sour Meatballs
My Grandma had this weird quirk where she would always tell my sisters and I to say "when," where 'when' would indicate for something to stop. For example, if she was pouring me a glass of milk, as she would begin to fill the glass, she would tell me to "say when." So here she is pouring me a glass of milk, and the glass becomes full enough. "Okay, Grandma," I say. The glass is more than halfway full. "That's good." But she continues to pour, the liquid now reaching the brim of the glass. "When, Grandma, WHEN!" I exclaim.
Phew! That was a close one.
Okay, all jokes aside grandma was a good lady. And very brave. Her fear of big dogs didn't stop her from visiting, even with the zoo we had at home! She would come visit for two or three weeks at a time. And during her stay, she would always cook a few of her staple dishes, including her Sweet and Sour Meatballs. This meant that my sisters and I would be welcomed home from school with the delectable aromas of sweet meat and raisins wafting through the house. And, while she made us wait until dinner to sit down and have a big plate of meatballs loaded up on a bed or rice and topped with that sweet orange sauce, she did let us taste at least a meatball or two.
Thank you, Grandma! Yum!
Over the years, I have made her incredible Sweet and Sour Meatballs on multiple occasions, but struggled with the number of calories that would mean consuming, and with how the sugar in the sauce would affect my body. So, naturally I went to work on changing the recipe to have the same great flavor, but with much better macros, and a lot less sugar.
The key to my Grandma's sweet and sour meatballs is the sauce.
If the sweet and sour sauce is made correctly, it won't matter whether you choose to make your meatballs with ground beef or ground turkey. While there may be some flavor variation, it is negligible. Now, I grew up eating my grandma's sweet and sour meatballs with beef. However, this version of the recipe uses Turkey as the meat. If you are currently on Keto, then I would recommend making this with beef. The instructions are identical and the lower calorie sauce has a negligible about of carbs. Please be sure to also check out the notes in the recipe itself because while the plugin I use only allows nutrition for one recipe, I have included additional nutritional information for the sauce and for the beef meatballs.
Prep Time: 45 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr
Additional Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Ingredients
Sauce
5 Cups (1200 grams) 100% Tomato Juice
10 TBSP (1 six-ounce can) Tomato Paste
6 oz water
720 grams Sauerkraut, including juice)
2/3 C (21 grams) Splenda, Granulated Sweetener
2 oz raisins, minimum
Meatballs
3 lb Ground Meat (see notes)
12 oz White/Yellow Onion, Diced or Chopped Finely
3 tsp Garlic Powder (1 tsp Per Pound of Meat)
2 1/4 tsp Salt (3/4 tsp Per Pound of Meat)
3 TBSP Sweet and Sour Sauce (1 TBSP Minimum Per Pound of Meat)
Instructions
Sauce
Place all ingredients in pot and simmer on low. Stir occasionally to ensure everything is mixed in well (especially the tomato paste). Let simmer while you make the meatballs.
Meatballs
Place all raw meat in a bowl.
Add onions. Ensure onions are chopped very finely. You do not want chunks of onion in the meatballs.
Add salt and garlic powder.
Take 3 TBSP of the sauce you just made, and add it to the bowl. Do your best to get sauce only. Avoid the raisins and sauerkraut to the best of your ability.
Mix well with your hands.
Roll into meatballs. I measure entire weight, and divide it by the number of ounces of meat that I used. So, for three pounds of meat at 16 oz per pound, I created 48 meatballs.
If you don't want to spend so long rolling meatballs, you can double the size. However, a full serving is 4 meatballs, so that means a serving of food would be only 2 meatballs. I find it more satisfying to have more on my plate.
Place meatballs carefully into the stock pot of sauce. Depending on how many meatballs you made, you will need to shove those meatballs in, but be careful not to break them.
Simmer until meatballs are cooked through, stirring occasionally to ensure all meatballs are cooked evenly. An hour will generally do this.
Serve in a bowl, and enjoy over a bed of rice, cauliflower rice, or on its own.
Notes
Sauce
The tomato juice will be found in a large can on the juice aisle of the grocery store. This is juice you would drink. Just be sure you don't get V8. You want pure tomato juice.
For the 6 oz water, you can just fill up the 6 oz can from the tomato paste, after you have placed it in pot.
For the sauerkraut, I don't think the jar (I got Claussen, Premium Crisp) counts the juice. However, you want to include this. I basically just set the jar on the scale and spooned out the sauerkraut and juice until it said 720g. It is a two lb jar, and I use about 3/4 of it.
For the raisins, my grandma used to use loads of them. I personally don't love them, so I don't use a lot. Plus, too many adds too much sugar.I would recommend using a minimum of 2-3oz (small boxes are each an ounce) just to help add sweetness to the sauce. You can always eat around them.
For the sugar, the original recipe calls for 1/3 cup granulated white sugar. I have used Splenda granulated and doubled that. I have tried this with other sugar sweeteners, and have struggled to find the correct ratios thus far. You can certainly use a different sweetener, but I do not have the ratios for it. Just consider the percent sweetness of the sugar substitute in comparison to the 1/3 regular sugar from the original recipe.
Meatballs
For the meat, I used the Jennie-O Ground Turkey, Extra Lean - The 1.5g fat per serving of turkey.
The original recipe calls for only two pounds of meat, with this same amount of sauce. However, there is always tons of sauce left over, so I always make more meatballs. This does however cause there to be a lot less room in the stock pot, so you have to shove the meatballs in carefully to fit. If you want to make less meatballs, just divide the recipe based on the amount of meat you make.
Nutrition
Turkey Meatballs
The nutritional information provided within the recipe plug-in is for the turkey meatballs only.
Beef Meatballs, based on 80 lean / 20 fat (for high fat diets)
1 serving is 4 meatballs
Calories: 303.2
Protein: 29.1 grams
Carbs: 3.6 grams
Fiber: 0.6 grams
Net Carbs: 3 grams
Fat: 18.4 grams (Saturated fat is 7 grams, Trans-fat is 0.9 grams)
Cholesterol: 0 grams
Sugars: 1.4 grams
Sodium: 533.1 grams
Sauce
1 serving is 1/4 C of sauce. Below is the nutritional information for one serving.
Calories: 17.4
Protein: .3 grams
Carbs: 4.2 grams
Fiber: 1.4
Net Carbs: 2.8 grams
Fat: 0 grams
Cholesterol: 0 grams
Sugars: 2.2 grams
Sodium: 218.9 grams
