Last football season, I made this fabulous vegetarian cocktail meatball dish. My family LOVED it! Even my 4 year old son!
But there was some aftermath. . . it really spiked my diabetic husband’s blood sugar. For those who are not familiar with diabetes, this is not a desired affect of eating and its usually caused by high sugar foods.
I thought the one cup of jelly was the problem. But I also learned the chili sauce had quite a few grams of sugar, as well.
I thought that was the end of my husband’s cocktail meatball eating days until I discovered low sugar jelly several months later.
The low sugar jelly, which has 1/2 the carbs and sugar as regular, got me thinking of how I could lighten up this dish so that we all could enjoy it healthily.
I attempted the recipe again with 1 cup of low sugar jelly and I reduced the chili sauce from 12 oz to 6 oz. And for no particular reason other than to give the recipe a slightly different flavor, I substituted the mustard for lemon juice.
This version still turned out very tasty! The sauce was considerably more runny than the original recipe, but low-sugar jelly is not nearly as, well, jelly-like as jelly. And of course, lemon juice is runnier than mustard.
With 1/2 the calories and sugar as the original, this is a much safer alternative. And although I will continue to use the diabetic friendly substitutions on all vegetarian cocktail meatball recipes, I now have 2 versions. The one with mustard for fall/winter and spring/summer for the lemon juice.
Vegetarian Cocktail Meatballs (Summer Version/Lightened Up Version/Reduced Sugar Version)
1 cup low-sugar grape jelly
1/2 cup chili sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 packages frozen vegetarian meatballs
Directions
1. Thaw vegetarian meatballs.
2. In a sauce pan combine jelly, chili sauce and lemon juice.
3. Heat over medium heat until the sauce reaches a low boil.
4. Add the thawed vegetarian meatballs.
5. Cover and continue heating for at least 10 minutes.
I will be submitting this recipe to follow fabulous food events…
My Meatless Mondays
On the Menu Monday
Sundae Scoop
I make these using regular meatballs. I am so happy you have posted this recipe. I have 2 niece who are vegetarians and this recipe will be wonderful when we have family get togethers! Thanks for joining ON THE MENU MONDAY. What a great alternative to the classic version!
Yvonne
These sound great. I have a grandson that would love these. Thanks so much..
Over from Stonegable.:)
xo bj
Hello
I found your blog off of Stonegable. I love this recipe. I make one similiar, but have never used the vegetarian meatballs. I’ve used turkey.
I do not have a food blog. I, occasionally, do recipes, but I’m more of a parenting, humor, and travel blog mixed in with a lot of this and that. As a mom to two children, I’m always looking for recipes and tips on meal planning. So, are my readers.
As a result, on August 1, I’m going to host a link up post for recipes, meal planning tips, or tools for kitchen organization to make meal planning easy. We need to some good vegetarian options. So many people are going meatless so many nights a week.
My post from Saturday has more details. I hope you join me. I would love to have you link up.
Leigh