This easy crockpot meatball soup recipe is great for busy days! You’ll also find tips for making meal planning easier and a delicious chocolate dessert!
Easy Meatball Soup Recipe And Meal
Tips:
You can buy frozen meatballs or, the next time you make a meatloaf or meatballs for something else, make some extra and keep them in the freezer, ready for quick meals like today’s meatball soup recipe.
There are many different meals you can make with frozen meatballs:
- Spaghetti
- Meatball sandwiches
- Barbecued meatballs
- Meatballs served by themselves as the main meat
- Add cream sauce for Swedish meatballs
- Sweet and sour sauce meatballs
With hot weather just around the corner, it would be great to have a bunch of meatballs already made and in the freezer so you can use your slow cooker on those hot days.
Menu:
Meatball Soup
Poppy’s Biscuits
Chocolate Gels
Recipes:
Meatball Soup Recipe
This meatball soup is a slow cooker recipe. You can adjust the vegetables to use what you have on hand. For example, you could use four potatoes instead of three, you could use fewer carrots, etc.
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 pkg. (16 oz.) fresh baby carrots, quartered
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery ribs, sliced
1 (12 oz.) pkg. frozen cooked meatballs
1 (10 1/2 oz.) can tomato soup, undiluted
1 cup water
1 (10 1/2 oz.) can beef gravy*
1 envelope onion soup mix
2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules
Layer the first 5 ingredients in a 5 quart slow cooker. Mix the remaining ingredients together and pour over meatballs and vegetables. Cover and cook on low for 9-10 hours or until vegetables are tender. Makes 6 servings.
*You can freeze gravy so the next time you have one or two lone cups of gravy left over, freeze it and save for this recipe.
I am constantly looking for something cool and easy to make for a summer dessert. A lot of dessert recipes call for fruit, which I love, but every once in a while (ok, all the time), I have a chocolate attack and this dessert might help with that.
Chocolate Gels
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
2 cups milk
1/2 cup instant chocolate drink mix
1/4 cup sugar
Dissolve gelatin in 1 cup of the milk. Mix remaining milk, drink mix and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until dissolved. Add gelatin mixture and mix well. Pour into an 8×8 pan. Cool 30 minutes at room temperature. Cover and refrigerate about 5 hours until firm. Do not freeze. Cut into squares or into shapes with a cookie cutter.
-Jill
For more quick and easy recipes like this easy meatball soup recipe, check out our Dining On A Dime Cookbook, which includes 480 pages of recipes and tips to save you time and money!
I have made this before and it is extremely good. I have substituted one package of frozen stew veggies to make it go together even faster.
Everything sounds so good especially those Chocolate Gels!
this is a dumb sounding question , But about how big do you make your meatballs? The ones on this page look like they are about 1 1/2 inches across, but others seem to look bigger. I have never made meatballs to freeze so want to do it right. I have made big ones about 3 inches to put on top of spagetti, but we ate them fresh.
Thanks in Advance.
We are down to 2 people in the house and freezing meatballs would be a great idea, 1 set of meat prepping and several meals to choose from.
Thanks for all the great ideas.
Pat it is kind of like what Donna said. You can pretty much make what ever size you want and it really makes no difference. I like smaller size ones for a couple of reasons; you can stretch your meat a little – people will eat a certain number of meatballs usually no matter the size so if they are smaller you can stretch them farther, second smaller meatballs cook faster.
Also it depends on what I am using them for. If it is for appetizers or to go in my spaghetti sauce I do smaller, if it is going to be the main meat and they are not mixed with anything like pasta but are eaten alone I will make them a little bigger.
just my thought, but I like small ones (melon ball) size. that way they’re the right size for kids, adults can always have more, and they’re always ready for appetizers.
we like an easy sweet/sour meatball in the crockpot, with just one can beef gravy and some chinese duck sauce, or some chili sauce and (believe it or not) grape jelly for a really spicy appetizer. you can use whatever you like. heat for several hours and they’re ready when you are.
donna b.
Donna
When you say instant chocolate drink mix, do you mean chocolate milk mix? Could you substitute cocoa and sugar?
Hildie, yes I use Nestle’s Quik. Now I’m not sure about using cocoa and sugar but you might try it and see because I can’t think of any reason it would not work.
sounds yummmmmmmm…….
I made the Chocolate Gels last night and they are great. Had some today. I used Nesquik. I was wondering too if just cocoa and sugar could be used instead. I would think it could, beacause you are basically making a gel out of hot chocolate. I don’t know for sure though. They are so good Jill, and I used a butterfly cookie cutter I have and it made them look so pretty. It is a lower calorie chocolate goodie, so thanks Jill.
I have made meatballs and have frozen them for years. I also make up rolled enchiladas with corn tortillas. I do not put any sauce on them. I make up the enchiladas as I normally would but I place them on cookie sheets and then set the cookie sheet in the freezer. Once the enchiladas are frozen, place them into freezer bags. The next time you want to make a quick dinner you can put some sauce in a 9X13 pan cover with enchilada sauce add cheese and then place in oven till the sauce is bubbly. Sorry I was probably not suppose to write anything like this but I know how busy things can get and this makes it just a little bit easier.
Cheryl
Oh No Cheryl we all love great ideas especially when they come to quick and easy ways of doing something so thanks for the suggestion and this is one we haven’t had before. Good idea.
Sorry I should have written that you put the enchiladas in the pan and then cover with sauce.
Hi Jill
Love the Chocolate gel receipe! Looking forward to your sale next week! Have 2 weddings showers to go to this summer and the cookbooks will make good gifts Thanks!
Thanks Susan. These are perfect for weddings. For any of you out there who have graduates too we have so many moms and grandmas giving these for graduates leaving home. The boys seem to especially love it. Anyway thanks again.
Just want you to know that I purchased the Dining on a Dime cookbook about a year ago and have to say that there isn’t a recipe that I’ve tried that isn’t wonderful. My family loves them all. I can’t use them all due to dietary restrictions, but the ones I use we LOVE!! Thank you for such a fun and useful cookbook! :)