Fun Whole Food Plant Based entertaining or a tasty dinner switch up, we’ve got you covered with these irresistible Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan co*cktail Meatballs. These little meatballs are perfect for dunking into our tangy and zesty Healthy Chili Sauce. When it comes to fabulous party treats, these Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce are guaranteed to be a hit at your next party.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Raise your hand if you remember taking a jar of chili sauce and mixing it with a jar of grape jelly, throwing it in a crockpot and heating it up with a load of tiny co*cktail meatballs?Personally, I only did this a few times myself, but I sure attended a lot of parties and office food days where this dish was the star of the show.
That recipe was the easiest recipe ever, especially if you bought the meatballs too! HAH! Those meatballs would swim for hours in the crockpot. I often wonder who was that first person to think of mixing grape jelly with chili sauce? I mean, what made them think to do this? Weird, right? But it totally worked!
When Monkey and I approached the idea making co*cktail meatballs, I was all for it, but I felt the vegan meatballs needed the perfect sauce, something similar to the “old chili sauce and grape jelly” sauce concept that has been around for years.
We bought a jar of Chili Sauce from the store and went about trying to duplicate it. We pretty much nailed it without all the added crap that is in it. Then we needed to find something to replace the grape jelly; we landed on simply using St Dalfour’s Raspberry Jam as their jam is 100% fruit with no added junk.
The jam worked perfectly paired with the chili sauce. You can easily adjust the tanginess vs sweetness of the sauce to suit your own personal preferences just by adding more or less jam. We preferred our sauce tangy and zesty, so the recipe has the minimumamount of jam. But you can easily add more jam to get a sweeter sauce.
This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very smallcommission if you purchase through those links at noadditional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosureshere.
Monkey and I wanted to showcase how beautiful, healthy, and delicious a Whole Food Plant Based appetizer spread can be – and easy too! We featured the following dishes for your WFPB platter of deliciousness!
- Vegan co*cktail Meat Balls (some glazed, some ready to dip)
- Healthy Chili Sauce
- Classic Hummus
- Jalapeno Hummus
- Roasted Red Pepper Sauce – Muhammara (Recipe coming soon 1/2/19)
- Quinoa Flatbread
- Assorted Veggies
- Mary’s Gone Crackers
The vegan meatballs are super yummy with or without the sauce. You could even make a mini meatball sub sandwich with them. We scarfed down the first test batch like our lives depended on it. The second test batch, I dropped on the floor after only rolling 10 meatballs, so we only got to devour ten of them. *sad face*
I swear I am such a klutz in the kitchen. I have more kitchen war wounds than the average person, well maybe right behind my son, Chris. He gets it honest. He is always injuring himself in the kitchen. My right thumb has been sliced, grated, zested, mandolined, and burnt. Ouch! It’s always something, ya know?
But before I go off on a tangent about my kitchen war wounds, I’ll let Monkey tell you more about these lovely co*cktail meatballs.
OooooOoo Doggies! These co*cktail meatballs are sooo good. I love the sauce too. Tangy with a hint of sweet, but as Mom said, you can easily adjust it by adding more raspberry jam. These little festive treats are perfect for your next party or just for fun with the kids.
I’m sure kids would love to eat little meatballs on decorative toothpicks. The fun is dunking them in the sauce. Mom and I were toasting our meatballs as we ate them, reminiscing and celebrating 2018.
2018 has been a crazy fun year! We are thankful that we took the leap to start a food blog as we love the closeness of our Whole Food Plant Based community, plus we have made a lot of great friends along the way.
We really hope you give this awesome recipe a try! It’s perfect for the holidays, entertaining, or just fun!
Post it on Instagramif you make it or leave us a review. We would love to hear from you!
Cheers to the end of wonderful 2018 and all the amazing possibilities 2019 brings!
- Small/Medium sauce pan
- Food Processor
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Vegan co*cktail Meatballs
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 StarNo reviews
- Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 30 Small Meatballs 1x
- Category: Appetizer, Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Description
Fun Whole Food Plant Based entertaining or a tasty dinner switch up, we’ve got you covered with these irresistible Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan co*cktail Meatballs. These little meatballs are perfect for dunking into our tangy and zesty Healthy Chili Sauce. When it comes to fabulous party treats, these Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce are guaranteed to be a hit at your next party.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Ingredients
Scale
- ½ cup cooked and refrigerated brown rice*
- ½ cup pecans, minced (measure after mincing)
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ]black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 Tablespoon flax meal (ground flaxseed)
- 2 Tablespoons tamari
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs(+/-) * (gluten free or regular panko bread crumbs) *
Seasonings/Spices:
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 Tablespoons dried minced onion flakes
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flake
- ½ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Other Ingredients:
- Healthy Chili Sauce – Doubled (Recipe Card below) – keep scrolling to the next recipe card on the post.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.
- Place the refrigerated brown rice into the food process and pulse until the rice is broken up. The rice may not break up completely. You do not want mush. Place the processed rice into a large bowl. (You do notneed to clean the food processor in between steps).
- Next place the pecans into the food processor and pulse until you have a fine crumb mixture. Note: The ½ cup (packed) measurement is after the pecans have been processed. Place in the large bowl with the rice.
- Next place the rinsed and drain black beans into the food process and coarsely chop, then place into the large bowl with the rice and pecans.
- Add all the remaining ingredients and spices into the large bowl and mix well. The mixture should easily pull together into one large clump.
- Using a small cookie scoop (about one heaping tablespoon), roll the mixture into balls and place onto the parchment lined baking sheet. Once all the balls have been rolled, place into a preheated 350 F oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- Make the Oil Free Chili Sauce (doubled)
- Serve glazed or fondue style.
Notes
*Rice:It is important to have completely cooled (refrigerated) rice as cooked and cooled rice allows the individual rice pieces to mix well with the other ingredients. Measure 1/2 cup cooked rice.
*Panko Bread Crumbs:If you are looking for a 100% WFPB compliant gluten free bread crumbs, you will need to make them the day before you make this dish. Food for Life Gluten Free Brown Rice English Muffinswork perfectly for those who are Whole Food Plant Based and gluten free, as they are refined sugar free and oil free. If your diet does not restrict gluten, you can use any WFPB compliant Panko crumbs.
For the Food for Life Gluten Free Brown Rice English Muffin conversion to bread crumbs– Pulse one room temperature Gluten Free Brown Rice English Muffin that has been torn it into small pieces, then place them in the food processor and pulse until it is completely broken down like coarse breadcrumbs. This make take several minutes. Place the crumbs onto a cookie sheet, spread them out and let them dry out overnight, then process them in the food processor again, then measure 1/2 cup for this recipe.
We used Ian’s Gluten Free Pankocrumbs for this recipe.
*Sea Salt:Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
*Tips:The best way to serve these meatballs is to keep the sauce and meatballs separated. The meatballs hold together nicely; however, they may not hold together over a long period of time such as with continuous heat from a crockpot. We suggest keeping the chili sauce heated and using co*cktail toothpicks to skewer the meatballs and dunk them in the heated chili sauce, similarly to fondue. If needed, add a Tablespoon (or more) of water to thin out the sauce.
*Makes: 30 small co*cktail meatballs
*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 7 days.
Don’t forget the delicious Healthy Chili Sauce to accompany these tasty mini meatballs!
Healthy Chili Sauce
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 StarNo reviews
- Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 13 minutes
- Yield: 2/3 Cup 1x
- Category: Sauce, Condiment
- Cuisine: American
Description
Fun Whole Food Plant Based entertaining or a tasty dinner switch up, we’ve got you covered with these irresistible Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan co*cktail Meatballs. These little meatballs are perfect for dunking into our tangy and zesty Healthy Chili Sauce. When it comes to fabulous party treats, these Vegan co*cktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce are guaranteed to be a hit at your next party.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients and gluten free.
Ingredients
Scale
- 4 Tablespoons tomato paste
- ½ cup distilled white vinegar
- 4 Tablespoons organic maple syrup
- 2 (or more) Tablespoons raspberry jam (or other complementary WFPB jam flavors) we used St. Dalfour Red Raspberry Jam*
Seasonings/Spices:
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 Tablespoons dried minced onions
- ¼ teaspoon sweet paprika
- ¼ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon dried ground mustard powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground clove
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
Instructions
- Place all the ingredients into a small sauce pan, stir well and cook for 10 minutes.
- Serve as a condiment on your favorite burger, as a dipping sauce with oven-baked French fries or fondue style with Vegan co*cktail Meatballs.
Notes
*Jam:We love St. Dalfour’s France All Natural Ingredient Jam as it is 100% fruit. Raspberry jam works perfectly.
*Amount of Jam:We enjoyed a tangy chili sauce with the meatballs which meant using less jam (2 Tablespoons); however, you can easily add more jam to create a sweeter sauce.
*Tips: The viscosity of the sauce is largely dependent on how you use it. If needed add a Tablespoon (or more) of water to thin it out.
*Sea Salt:Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
*Makes: Approximately 2/3 cup sauce
*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 7 days.
This post contains affiliate links, and we may receive a very smallcommission if you purchase through those links at noadditional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosureshere.
