Fun Whole Food Plant Based entertaining or a tasty dinner switch up, we’ve got you covered with these irresistible Vegan Cocktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan Cocktail 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 Cocktail 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.
Hi! Robin here.
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 cocktail 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!
Cocktail Meatballs
When Monkey and I approached the idea making cocktail 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 minimum amount 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 small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
Fun Entertaining the WFPB Way!
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 Cocktail 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
Kitchen Mishaps
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 cocktail meatballs.
Hi there, Ameera here!
OooooOoo Doggies! These cocktail 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 Instagram if 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!
Products Used:
- Small/Medium sauce pan
- Food Processor
- Baking sheet
- Parchment paper
Vegan Cocktail Meatballs
- 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 Cocktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan Cocktail 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 Cocktail 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
- 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 not need 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 Muffins work 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 Panko crumbs 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 cocktail 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 cocktail meatballs
*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 7 days.
Don’t forget the delicious Healthy Chili Sauce to accompany these tasty mini meatballs!
Print
Healthy Chili Sauce
- 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 Cocktail Meatballs with Healthy Chili Sauce. Tender black beans, brown rice, and savory spices come together to create delectable mini Vegan Cocktail 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 Cocktail 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
- 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 Cocktail 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 small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.
Oh yes, these will definitely need to be made. I don’t entertain where I’d have these as appetizers for a crowd, but I can see them on a bed with sauteed spinach with plenty of sauce. That sounds sounds so yummy. Some of those old school, not-WFPB are mighty tasty—just with crappy ingredients, so it will be fine to attempt this WFPB. Do you remember years ago a recipe that every household made—chicken with apricot jam and Lipton’s onion soup mix? It was delicious, just full of chemicals with the dried soup mix. Any ideas how to WFPB this? Hint… Read more »
Hi there Ellen 🙂 So glad that you are interested in making these tasty meatballs. They’d be super tasty with a side of yummy spinach and veggies. We are all about the old school/nostalgic dishes. We aren’t familiar with the apricot jam and Lipton’s onion soup mix. This one is new to us, but I bet it is yummy with the sweet and savory you mention. We’d love to look into this! We’ve been experimenting with soy curls lately. We have a couple projects lined up over the next several months, but this is definitely going on our white board… Read more »
Hey there, maybe the apricot jam and Lipton’s onion soup was a NJ thing—although I think it was on the back of the Lipton’s onion soup mix box. Had to google it. All it is a sauce of 1 cup apricot jam/preserves, 1 envelope Lipton’s onion soup mix, and 1 cup of French dressing, mixed together and baked on top of chicken. Would love for you to WFPB it!
Awesome! Thanks for looking that up for us! Sounds very interesting and packed with flavor!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
These were as wonderful as I knew they would be! Could definitely see the meatballs as a meatball sub or with pasta or on pizza/flatbread. Only got 22, but that’s fine since we weren’t using it as cocktail meatballs. Served on sauteed spinach. Yum! Sauce was wonderful. My husband made it and missed the part about the jam. While we were eating it I asked him what jam he used since I knew we didn’t have raspberry, but had strawberry, cherry, orange, and mango. Oops–he missed that part. The sauce was still wonderful. We reheated the sauce and second half… Read more »
Awe, yaaay! So glad that you enjoyed these meatballs and sauce! Love that you served them with sautéed spinach – YUM! We’ve had these with and without the jam, the jam just adds a little extra sweetness, but if you like a nice tang the sauce by itself works as a nice dip 😉 We sincerely appreciate you and your continued support! It means so much to us! Thank you <3
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Does the recipe use 1/2 cup of rice measured before cooking or measured after cooking it?
Hi there Cary 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us! Yes, the ½ cup rice is cooked and refrigerated first, then measured to ½ cup. We also mentioned this in our notes section too. Happy cooking!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
These were so delicious!! I think I ate half of the mixture before I got them in the oven ha! I’m going to make them again this weekend and add some Italian seasoning. Hubby wants to have them with spaghetti. Thanks for another great recipe! I’ve loved everyone I’ve made so far ???
Hi there Shar 🙂
Yaaayyy!!! We are so thrilled that you enjoyed this recipe! Love the idea of adding Italian seasoning – total YUM! Thank you so much for your kind words, support, awesome feedback, and for taking the time to write! *hugs*
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
We have made these twice. They are DELICIOUS! The dipping sauce is aromatic and tangy. Can I freeze batches of meatballs for the holidays?
Hi there Mary Ellen 🙂
Yaaaayyy!!! We are SUPER excited that you’ve made this recipe twice so far, and you are enjoying them! These meatballs freeze well. Thank you so much for your awesome feedback and for taking the time to write.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
I’m a little lost on this one… we lead up to using raspberry jam in the sauce, yet there is no mention of it in the recipe. Are you replacing the maple syrup with the jam? Love the look of your recipes and the tone of your adventures! Thank you. I’ll be trying some of these!
Hi there Paula 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us and bringing this to our attention. We completely understand your confusion and have adjusted the recipe to make it clearer. Thank you so much for your support and for taking the time to write to let us know as we want to make sure our readers understand our recipes. We hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
What is the best way to reheat the meat balls? Thank you.
Hi there Janet 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. As leftovers, we typically just reheat in the microwave.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
I have a party this Saturday. I bought all the ingredients but cannot find black beans in my local grocery stores. Can I use other beans such as chickpeas, black eyed beans, lentils or kidney beans?
Hi there Laura 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. We apologize for the late response. Yes, you can use other beans in place of the black beans. Keep in mind that the flavor will be slightly different and depending on which type of bean you choose the moisture content will be slightly different as well. We hope you enjoy this recipe. Thank you so much!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Hi there! Are the pecans toasted or raw?
Hi there Otilija 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. We used raw pecans, but toasted, unsalted pecans would work well too.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Is there anything that can replace the pecans? I have a tree nut allergy.
Hi there Sarah 🙂
Thank you so much for reaching out to us. We haven’t tried any substitutes, but we think that sunflower seeds might work well.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Hi Ladies, these ‘meatballs’ are really delicious ! I’ve made them two times and both times and they were a little crumbly. Any thoughts on what I could have done to cause that? Thanks so very much for your flavorful WFPB foods, this website is really wonderful !!! Kim
Hi there Kim 🙂 We sincerely apologize for the late response as Monkey has been on maternity leave and we are now just being able to address comments – thank you for your patience. Thank you so much for your kind words about our site. We are so glad that you enjoyed these ‘meatballs.’ We are sorry that they came out a little crumbly though. Hmmm, we aren’t sure what might have caused them to be crumbly. They are a drier style meatball, but they shouldn’t be crumbly. Perhaps, the brand of brown rice being used as some rice are… Read more »
Oh my goodness! These were crazy good! I say crazy, because it was my hubbie (who is coming along with me on this wfpb journey, a little hesitantly) who actually first commented on the meatballs and declared them good! Crazy, right?!? ? We both couldn’t believe how tender they were. I baked them and then I put them into a frying pan with the chili sauce to glaze them. And I paired them with your Pineapple Fried Rice. Awesome dinner.
So. Much. Yum. ?
Hi there Sandra 🙂
Yippyyyyy!!! We love that you and your hubbie thought these meatballs were crazy good – especially coming from your hubbie, what a total plant based win 😀 We appreciate you sharing your awesome feedback with us!
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
Made these tonight to go with the pineapple fried rice I made for lunch. The “meatballs” were quite good but for me the sauce was too vinegary. For that same reason I thought my husband would like it, but he said it was too sweet. To each his own, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll use the rest of the balls with spaghetti. We will both like that.
Hi there Teri,
We are sorry that this recipe did not work out for you. This is one of our favorite recipes.
-Ameera and Robin
I made this today and it’s so delicious and flavorful. No sauce needed. I didn’t have some ingredients so I used walnuts, white beans and potato starch.
Hi there Sue,
YAYYYY!!!! So happy that you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much! ❤
-Ameera and Robin
I am tempted to use apple cider vinegar or balsamic to add more excitement. I have not made them yet but what do you think? Plain vinegar just seems kind of boring but maybe there’s a reason I should not try another vinegar. Please advise!
Hi there,
Please feel free to use your favorite vinegar. Every vinegar has a different flavor profile, we felt distilled white vinegar had the perfect amount of zing for this recipe. Again, feel free to adjust any of the ingredients to achieve what you believe works for you. All of our recipes are easily customizable to suit your own personal preferences. Thank you.
-Ameera and Robin 🙂
This was so good, I used our homemade fig jam & added about a tablespoon of Asian Chili Garlic Sauce (from our local Asian market) for extra spice/heat. Wow. Tomorrow I’m going to air fry some tofu & toss it with the leftover sauce. I’m printing the recipe & hanging it front & center in my cabinet to make all the time 🙂
We love all your recipes – and the presentation is always magnificent.
Cheers to y’all!
Christy & Randy
Hi there Christy & Randy,
YAYYYY!!! We are thrilled that you gave this recipe a try and enjoyed it! We are thrilled that you plan to make it again. We appreciate YOU and your support. Thank you so much!
-Ameera and Robin
These meatballs and sauce were the first recipes from Monkey and Me Adventures that I ever made!! Several years ago. They BOTH are a WINNERS!! Amazing flavor and you will feel so good eating something nutritious that you create with LOVE!!
Hi there Tanya,
YAYYY!! We are so happy that you enjoyed these “meatballs” and sauce. We are very appreciative of the awesome review. Thanks sooo much! <3
-Ameera and Robin