Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Looking for the perfect meatball recipe? Look no further! These sweet and sour meatballs are tender, perfectly seasoned, and amazingly delicious!
This is a favorite meal of ours that I have been making for years.
On Sunday evenings when I am planning our weekly menu, I’ll ask Brian to give me at least one meal suggestion.
No fail, he either comes up with this dish or his other fave, Sweet and Sour Chicken.
By the way, I usually veto his suggestions, though, because I have so many recipes to try that I don’t like eating the same thing week after week.
Rude, I know, but how will I ever try all these recipes before I die if I am making Sweet and Sour Meatballs or Chicken every week?
These meatballs are also a huge winner with my kidlets.
The meatballs are tender and perfectly seasoned, especially after baking in the simple sweet and sour sauce.
For me, this is definitely a perfect weeknight meal – and we enjoy it often (but clearly not as often as Brian would like)!
Update Nov. 2014: After five or so years living on the blog, this recipe needed an update (mostly the photos). I also gave a few additional tips and instructions in the recipe.
I cut the milk down to 1/4 cup to make the meatballs sturdier (the original was 1/2 cup if you want to stick with that) and I usually scale back the sugar to 1/4 cup as well (1/2 cup in the original).
And of course, I always double the sauce since we like it on the saucy side.
Read the notes below the recipe title for another cooking variation that is speedy and oven-free.
What to Serve With This:
Baked Brown Rice
Fresh, seasonal fruit
Spinach Strawberry Salad with Homemade Creamy Poppyseed Dressing
Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 ½ pounds lean ground meat, see note
- ¾ cup quick oats or old-fashioned oats that have been lightly pulsed in a blender
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- ½ cup finely chopped onion
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Sauce:
- ¼ – ½ cup brown sugar, depending on how sweet you want the sauce
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
- ¼ cup barbecue sauce
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- Hot cooked rice for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- For the meatballs, combine all of the ingredients and mix well. Form into about 12 meatballs (right around 2-inches each). Place in a lightly greased 9X13-inch pan.
- For the sauce, whisk together the ingredients until well-combined.
- Pour the sauce over the meatballs and bake for 30 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through and the sauce is slightly thickened.
- Serve over hot, cooked rice, if desired.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from Lion House Recipes
Anonymous – thanks for your comment. I’m glad you liked this. It sounds like from several comments that maybe doubling the sauce is the answer for those that like things a bit saucier. I’m not sure what to tell you on the sauce question. I haven’t tried watering it down because I like the flavor but you might try adding a bit of chicken broth – although that would make it more watery and not as thick.
Do you think these would work with ground turkey? We’re not beef eaters in my family. Yummers!
Aaron.Shara.Abby – I’ve never done this in a crockpot so I don’t have any great advice. I’ve never cooked meatballs at all in a crockpot because I’m always afraid they’ll get mushy. I suppose you could bake these beforehand and keep them warm in a crockpot. Sorry I don’t have a good answer!!
Looks so good. This might be dinner next week. I’ll return and give you a full report if so. I love it when people do that with my food. I am self-centered like that.
I just wanted you to know that I love your blog. I use at as my new recipe book. I also send my friends and sisters to it all the time. Your sugar gem recipe is the BEST. So is your sour cream roll recipe. I think you rock.
mmm..yummy..I love sweet and sour meatballs!!
umm….. YUM!!! Can’t wait to try this one out!!!!
Thanks for this recipe. I made it with ground chicken and it turned out so good!
Hey Mel- I made this tonight for dinner and just wanted to add something if I may….>>David and I loved the sauce and had thought that it needed some more. So I would suggest that if you LOVE sauce I would double or even triple it! We LOVE this dish!!
You know, I have wondered about that recipe for a long time. Now I’ll have to try it! Your meatballs sure do look great!
Julia – I definitely think you could use ground turkey for these. I haven’t tried it before but I’ve used ground turkey for other recipes and it seems to do pretty well as a substitution for ground beef. Let me know if you try it!
Have you ever tried to re-make Great Harvest’s Fruit Bars? I’ve been looking for a recipe online and can’t find anything. (I went to GH this afternoon and they were all sold out). REALLY not a healthy choice, but delicious!
Awesome, Rebecca! Thanks for letting me know the result with turkey. Glad that even after three days of eating the meatballs you aren’t tired of them!
this is exactly how i like my balls o’ meat–the mustard is such a key player. bravo!
ooh these sound divine!!!
Jessica – thanks for letting me know you tried this recipe and liked it. I’m so glad they were a hit with your little girl – that is always good news!
Rebecca – I’m so glad you liked it and thank you for checking back and detailing your changes…that is helpful to anyone who might want to make it. Thanks!
Think I will have to make this tonight!
Woodbury Family – thanks for letting me know your family liked these! I appreciate you checking back in to let me know.
I would love to make this for our Sunday dinner, but was wondering if I could do it in the crockpot. Have you tried it before?
Sounds like a great recipe can’t wait to try. Thanks for sharing you recipe.
I made this Sunday for my large family. I doubled the recipe and it was a really good thing because we were literally fighting over the last meatball. Everyone raved about them. So delicious! Thanks for another great recipe.
These were so yummy. I am a sauce kind of girl, so I automatically doubled the sauce and was glad I did. It was my favorite part! I, too, may try it next with ground turkey just to cut down a bit on fat.
I love sweet and sour meatballs, Cody on the other hand, not so much! But, I think I will slip it into our menu here soon and see if he tastes it!
Lauren – I like my meatball sandwiches more with a tomato-style sauce, so for me, these wouldn’t make great meatball sandwiches with the given sauce. However, if you made the meatballs and changed sauces to a tomato sauce, they would be great. I actually have another recipe on this site for wonderful meatball sandwiches if you want it: >http://mykitchencafe.blogspot.com/2007/12/marianns-meatball-subs.html
Christine – your comment was so appreciated – it made my day. Thank you! I’m so glad you liked the sugar gem recipe and the rolls. Thanks for letting me know!
Yong-Sook – it was so fun to see your comment on here. I’m glad you liked the meatballs! Thanks for letting me know.
Looks so yummy!I like the the fact that the meatballs cook in the sauce; a real time saver.
haha my husband is the same way. he always wants the same thing. lucky for him during my first trimester he got his wish!>>I have a sweet & sour recipe from my father, but I will have to try this one out as well. yum!
These sound so good! My mom always used to make sweet and sour meatballs for company whenever we had family gatherings or dinner parties. This recipe is slightly different from hers but sounds like it would be a fun one to try. >>Your photos look great!
Liz – your comments are awesome. Thanks for taking the time to let me know what you think about the recipes you’ve tried. And don’t forget to keep sending me some of your great recipes.
Oh your picture is really making me hungry! I am so going to have to try this out! It looks like a hubby tempter!
blakeley – glad you liked these! Several people have mentioned that doubling the sauce is a good idea so I’m glad you liked it that way!
Mmmm, I might make those tonight! My husband’s a little different – I can’t even get him to make requests! He just says he’s good with anything and that he’d rather have a back massage. 🙂 If only food were his love language…
I wish I had the same problem…my so doesn’t request anything I make, except my crockpot meat sauce…he will eat whatever, it’s all good to him. It’d be nice to hear some kind words of encouragement, especially since I just started cooking almost a year ago…I got damn good too imo…but I get no appreciation. A backrub would be nice in either direction.
Definitely gonna try these. I don’t like spaghetti and meatballs, but this is a totally different ball game. YUM.
I love this recipe I haven’t made them in ages yours look yummy.
Please Please PLEASE make a cookbook. I am now starting to get on your blog daily to get a recipe for dinner. I have printouts of your recipes I’ve copied and pasted laying around my kitchen and would love nothing more than to have them organized. And lets be honest, I’m not going to be the one to do it. So if you had a cookbook I could have that be my organization method. No more print outs:) Do what Chris Davis said. Something about amazon only printing out so many copies or something? You’d bank on it!
That’s so funny, my husband is the same way! He requests sweet and sour chicken every week and I just have to veto it every so often! Anyways, these look fabulous! I KNOW my husband would love them!
Hey I posted this last week on my blog and I LOVE this recipe! I’ve made it at least every month for the last year now since I got it from you! THanks! Oh and your picture is 10000 times better than mine!
Sooooo …I’m giving up blogging for LENT… But that doesn’t mean I can’t ‘look up’ recipes online……. I’ll be making all your recipes since I”ll have so much time on my hands !>THe chili was fabby ….
I love the idea of using quick oats as a binder instead of breadcrumbs!
I made these again the other night, and substituted turkey for the beef. I used lean turkey (I assume it was the 93%) and they were delicious. The only thing I noticed was there was more fat pooling around the meatballs than when I made them with beef. I’m not sure if its due to the turkey, or b/c I doubled the recipe. The baking dish at the bottom of the stove had more fat than the one on top. >I doubled the recipe which gave me around 27 balls and I quadrupled the sauce. We’re on day 3 of eating these!>The first time I made them my husband ate so fast and kept saying how much he loved them, and then he kept going back for more!
My husband LOVES these. He also LOVES the sweet and sour chicken. It’s funny that your husband requests them often too. Seriously, he could not stop saying how good they were. Isn’t that what every wife wants to hear?
I cannot say how much I appreciate the time you take to cook and post all of these recipes. I am sure with 4 little kids that it cannot be easy. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! -Liz K.
Wow.. this is awesome. I love meatballs. Thnaks for the recipe, let me try.
Loved it! I substituted soymilk since my youngest has a dairy allergy. Also, since I used almost 2 lbs of meat, it made 18 meatballs so I doubled the sauce.>>I’d love to try it with ground turkey next time.
YUM! I was looking for a good meatball recipe!
Meatballs are my favorite ever since i was a child. Your recipe looks really yummy!
i love meatballs and your recipe looks so yummy!
I have fallen in love with your blog. Like Christine (above) I too share it with my sisters and others I know. I’ve tried so many of your recipes and have loved all of them. I tried this recipe tonight. I followed it exactly, but found that there wasn’t much sauce. I think it could use more. Also, the flavor of the sauce was very strong… it tasted as though it needed to be watered down. Any suggestions?
I’m going to be making these tonight. I was wondering instead of serving them with rice, would they make a good meatball sandwhich??