This is one of my absolute favorite dishes to make in a pressure cooker. It's simple to do and the meatballs are so moist and delicious In fact, I encourage you to make just about any meatball recipe in the pressure cooker in order to avoid that frozen food appearance and lackluster taste. You can make these with ANY freshly ground meat such as chicken, venison, and rabbit. So yes, this recipe most certainly does have a place on Preparedness Pro. Also, you can home can these meatballs for future enjoyment.

These meatballs won't have the relatively smooth surface like meatballs normally do as a result of the rice and the looseness of the mixture. But they are fabulous, nonetheless. However, you certainly can use this method of cooking to make your regular meatballs.

Feel free to add a bit more punch to this recipe with red pepper flakes or bell peppers. I use this recipe as my beginning canvas and then mix things up depending on what kind of sauce I'm going to serve them in. Remember, tomatoes have a natural sugar content and sugar can scorch in the pressure cooker, so if you're wanting a thicker, heartier sauce to go with your meatballs, be sure that you cook them according to directions first and THEN modify your sauce as you'd like. You won't need to further pressure cook the modified sauce as your contents will already be hot and your flavors will marry quickly when using a pressure cooker.

You can make this without a pressure cooker if you'd like simply by cooking them on the stove in a enameled Dutch oven with a tight fitting lid. It will take 30 minutes to cook rather than 8 though.

Enjoy!!

Pressure Cooker Italian Meatballs/Porcupines  (Serves 6-8)

 

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground beef or turkey (can also combine some ground sausage for a little more kick)
• 1 cup of long-grain minute rice
• 1 slightly beaten egg
• ½ t. salt
• 1 T. Italian Seasoning
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• ½ t. onion powder
• 1/8 t. ground black pepper
• 1 regular sized can of condensed tomato soup
• 1 ½ cans of water

 

Preparation: In a bowl, mix all ingredients together by hand except the soup and water, until well blended. Separate and roll mixture into 2” balls.  Place on bottom of cold pressure cooker. Add condensed soup and water. (No need to stir)  Seal the cooker and bring contents to High Pressure over high heat.  Once pressure has been reached, allow to cook for 8 minutes.

 

As soon as the cooking time has expired, remove cooker from heat and rapidly remove pressure and then open.  Serve while hot.