Get these crockpot meatballs cooking in about 10 minutes, and all you need to do is cook pasta at dinner time!
I love spaghetti and meatballs, and this week I wondered if they would turn out well in the crockpot. When it comes to crockpot recipes, I don’t want to have to cook anything before adding it to the slow cooker. If I wanted to brown my meatballs first, I wouldn’t be using the slow cooker in the first place! Since I had good results with baking meatballs recently, I thought I would give it a go just tossing them in raw and letting them cook.
Let me tell you, the crockpot meatballs turned out great! They were cooked perfectly and held their shape well. They were a bit flat on the bottom and not perfectly round, but I didn’t care one bit when I was putting them into my mouth.
Since I love one-dish dinners, I decided to throw in spinach and mushrooms to cover my vegetable bases. (If you have a spinach hater in the family, you could leave it out!) Since I added undrained frozen spinach, there was lots of earthy spinach flavor in the sauce. We loved the rich flavor, and I hope you do too!
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 240 minutes |
| Servings |
-5
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- 16-20 oz. ground turkey or beef I used turkey
- 1 tsp. Italian seasoning or 1/2 tsp. each dried oregano and basil
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp. chili powder
- 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
- a few grinds of black pepper
- 28 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
- 8 oz. frozen chopped spinach
- 8 oz. mushrooms quartered (I used baby portabellas)
- 1 c. water
- 14-16 oz. box spaghetti or linguine whole wheat preferred
- 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella or grated parmesan optional
Ingredients
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- Stir together ground meat, Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, salt, and black pepper.
- In the slow cooker, stir together spaghetti sauce, spinach, mushroom, and water.
- Using a large disher or rounded tablespoons, shape meat into balls and drop in a single layer into the sauce mixture. Gently press them down slightly so they are mostly covered with sauce. Place the lid on the slow cooker, and cook on low 8 hours or high 4 hours.
- About a half hour before serving, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil, and cook pasta according to package instructions. While pasta cooks, gently stir meatballs into sauce. (Your meatballs might be a bit stuck together, but you can easily separate them with a spoon.)
- Serve meatballs over cooked pasta, and top with cheese if desired.
arielle says
This looks yummy. Do you thaw the spinach first?
Andi says
Hi, Arielle! I didn’t thaw the spinach first, which made it really easy. The spinach flavor is really strong that way though. For a milder flavor, you could thaw the spinach and squeeze it dry before adding it. Hope that helps. Thank you!
Liz says
Love this recipe too. You are so talented. Thank you.
Andi says
You are too sweet, Liz! Thank you!
Camille L says
I would love to try this one when I’ll have time..I’ve never tried to make sauce from spinach and mushrooms, it looks yummy!
★★★★★
Andi says
Thank you, Camille! Let me know how you like it if you give it a try.
Kelly says
I love slow cooker meals and this dish sounds awesome since I don’t need to brown anything first. I’m with you, I’d rather cook everything in the slow cooker too and love that you added spinach and mushrooms in here! Can’t wait to give this a try, thanks for sharing Andi!
Andi says
Thank you, Kelly! I hope you like it! I know the results can be better with some dishes like searing roasts first before adding them to the slow cooker, but at that point I’d rather just cook the whole thing at dinner time in oven!