My grandmother’s tried and tested sweet & sour meatballs recipe; a family favourite and super quick and easy to make too. Leftovers freeze very well, and this recipe can be batch-cooked.
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Nostalgic recipes
You know those meals that take you right back to your childhood? Those dishes with their scents and flavours reminiscent of happy moments with your family gathered around the dining table, joking with your grandfather, giving your little brother grumpy looks because he’s just eaten the last meatball and you really wanted it, helping with the washing up afterwards?
This is one of those recipes for me.
We always had these sweet and sour meatballs on Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house. My grandmother would batch-cook them in advance and keep them in the deep freeze until needed. This made it easier to prep Christmas dinner the evening before.
Oh my goodness, I loved these sweet and sour meatballs as a child. She always served them with plain boiled rice (the only time I ever ate rice during my childhood, too) and that in itself felt rather exotic.
This is not a recipe I make very often, as, in all honesty, with its sugar content, it’s really not on the healthy spectrum of family meals. It makes for a nice occasional treat though, and I’ve been craving them recently. It’s nostalgic comfort food that takes me back to a place of safety and security, a time when life didn’t feel so… fragile.
I brought this recipe with me when I immigrated from Canada, written down in cup measures in my old notebook. The original recipe didn’t include the recipe for the meatballs themselves, just the sauce, so the meatballs are my own. In all honesty, you could always just buy a couple of packets of ready-made meatballs at your local butcher to save a little bit of time and effort.
The sauce is super easy to make with simple store cupboard ingredients. Measure all the ingredients into a small saucepan, bring to a simmer and thicken with cornflour. It only takes a few minutes. Pour the sauce over the browned meatballs in a casserole dish and pop in the oven for half an hour while you get on with the rice and veg.
You could freeze the browned meatballs (make sure they’re cooked through first) with the sauce at this stage, defrosting and baking in the oven later.
Despite its high sugar content, these sweet and sour meatballs are really quite savoury. The vinegar and dry mustard powder counteract the sweetness of the brown sugar and tomato ketchup (a classy ingredient, I know, but it totally works!).
If these meatballs aren’t quite what you’re looking for, you could always try some of my other meatball recipes. You can find some links below.
What recipes bring you back to your childhood? Let me know in the comments!
Recipe Difficulty Levels
Easy
Requires basic cooking skills and ingredients you most likely already have in your kitchen.
Moderate
Requires more experience, preparation and/or cooking time. You may have to source special ingredients.
Challenging
Recipes requiring more advanced skills and experience and maybe some special equipment.
Grandma’s Sweet and Sour Meatballs Recipe
Ingredients
for the meatballs
- 500 grams lean beef mince
- 1 small red onion finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 medium free-range egg beaten
- freshly ground black pepper
- Shetland sea salt
for the sweet & sour sauce
- 300 grams dark brown soft sugar
- 125 ml distilled white vinegar
- 175 ml water
- 1 tsp dry mustard powder
- 125 ml tomato ketchup
- 2 tbsp cornflour
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Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 C/ 160 C fan.
- To prepare the meatballs combine the ground beef, onion, garlic, tomato puree, salt, pepper and egg together in a large bowl using your hands. Make sure everything is well combined so that the meatballs don’t fall apart when cooking.
- Form the mixture into 36 one-inch round meatballs and set aside on a plate.
- Heat a nonstick frying pan and fry the meatballs in batches until browned on the outside. Transfer to an ovenproof casserole dish.
- Meanwhile, combine the brown sugar, vinegar, water, mustard and ketchup in a medium sized saucepan. Whisk over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture starts to bubble.
- Thicken the sauce with the cornflour dissolved in a little cold water and pour the sauce over the meatballs.
- Transfer the casserole dish to the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- Serve with plenty of rice and a green vegetable on the side.
Tariette: a Plateful of Provence Art-de-Vivre
Hi Elizabeth, These sorts of suppers, with upbeat recollections, are the best. Something exceptionally encouraging about it. Be that as it may, you know, my Grandma didn’t cook anything half as extraordinary. These truly do look tasty. I adore meatballs yet have never had anything very like these.
Ti’s a really delicious food recipe. I will must try at home making this recipe. Thank you for share such post.
These looks so nice! Im going to try and make these meatballs for dinner this week. Thanks for the recipe.
WOW, It’s looking so beautiful and delicious food recipe. I love meatballs. Thank you for shear my favorite food recipe.
A teist on my normal sweet and sour – the COMBINATION of flavour will surely delight my FAMILY
Original Idea….; )
These sweet and sour meatballs really look delicious and this post made me miss my grandmother. She is the best cook for me and I just miss her cooking so bad.
Would love to try this recipe. Thank you for sharing. That is very generous of you to share a family recipe.
Ooh wow, this looks absolutely delicious! I love sweet and sour sauce, never had it on meatballs though! xo
This looks like a real quick and easy winter warmer – proper comfort food for the cold snap x
I love meatbalIs
Grandma’s recipes are always the best, and so authentic too! I miss my grandmother so much, she left us last year. Meatballs were also her favourite and I think I’ll have to make these in my kitchen soon.
The one meal that reminds me of my childhood is chips and beans, or beans on toast! Whenever I’d go to visit my nan those were the only meals I wanted to eat!
These kind of meals, with happy memories are the best. Something very comforting about it. Your recipe sounds super tasty, and a great idea for batch cooking. I have fond memories of my Mother making dinners when I was younger, I always used to ask her to make savoury rice in her Dutch Oven, served with a splash of Worcestershire Sauce. Delicious.
Passing this one straight onto our resident cook Mr Kavey to make me ASAP!
These sound so delicious, and they look a,azimg. Definitely have to try these out for dinner some time
Oh Yum! These meatballs look so mouthwatering!! I am going to try making this for dinner
You were one lucky lady! My Grandma didn’t cook anything half as exotic. These really do look delicious. I love meatballs but have never had anything quite like these. That sauce is so glossy! Fantastic recipe 🙂
what a fabulous recipe and one I definitely want to try:-)
These really do look like the perfect comfort food. So delicious! Thank you for including my recipe too. 🙂
Your recipe looks super delicious and you have styled it beautifully to make it so inviting.
I haven’t made meatballs in ages, I must give this a try
Really nice. Will go well with broccoli for a lighter meal.
Both of my children love meatballs but we’ve never have sweet and sour ones, I definitely think that we need to try these.