Albondigas, or spanish meatballs, uses three meats and packs a punch of flavor. My favorite part about this recipe is that it can be prepped in advance and left to finish cooking in the slow cooker. (With a single range and oven in our kitchen, keeping as many cooking surfaces available for this meal is an additional bonus!) Because the meatballs are browned before placing in the slow cooker, they retain their shape throughout the cooking time. Keep reading for the full recipe!
Ingredients:
- 1 LB ground pork
- 1/2 LB lean ground beef
- 1/2 LB hot chorizo
- 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 t hot smoked paprika, if unavailable use ground cayenne pepper
- 5 T dry bread crumbs
- 2 eggs
- 4 T fresh parsley
- coarse salt
- ground pepper
- 3 T extra virgin olive oil
- 28 oz diced tomatoes
- 1 C shiraz red wine
Directions:
Combine 1/4 C onion, ground beef, pork and chorizo in a large sized bowl. Add dry bread crumbs, eggs, and parsley. Mix thoroughly. Mix and roll into 25 meatballs. (If you want larger portions, size out to 14 meatballs, approximately a baseball in size. This is what I did for a entree sized portion.) In a large skillet with extra virgin olive oil, brown meatballs on all sides. Brown batches for 8 minutes. Add remaining onion to skillet. Cook until translucent, scraping meat bits from the bottom of the skillet. Add paprika, tomatoes, and red wine. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer meatballs and sauce to slow cooker. Cook on low until meatballs are tender, approximately 5 hours.
To serve: I choose shallow bowls for the meatballs. Because I wanted each person to have a large portion, the bowl was filled with two baseball sized meatballs. Then ladle a spoonful of additional sauce over the meatballs. Top with finely chopped parsley and fresh ground black pepper. Serve with a slice of toasted italian bread.