By Kellene Bishop
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.
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Ummm, I’ve never made meatballs, so forgive me if this is an obvious question – is the rice cooked or uncooked when you mix it in?
The rice is uncooked when you put it in.
Our family has been making porcupine meatballs for years but we’ve never done it in a pressure cooker. I’m going to have to try it this way.
Not much into ‘minute rice’…how would long would you recommend cook time if using regular white rice…and should I precook the rice if using it? Thank you…looking forward to trying this!
I’d give it 3 more minutes if using regular rice.
Hi. This recipe sounds wonderful. I’m just learning how to can and wondered how you would prepare in that event. Would you precook and then can or prepare the meatballs as above and can the raw meat as I have seen done for meatloaf? Thanks in advance
It’s been a LONG time since I had these. Thanks for reminding me about them.
About how many would this serve?
Another question, could you use mushroom soup instead of tomato?
Thanks for all your wonderful information.
As per the recipe, this serves 6 to 8. Dairy will definitely scorch in a pressure cooker.
raw in jars, in pressure canner, it would work with mushroom soup. You would need to find out amount of pressure and for how long. Make sure you follow mfg. directions. leave head space, whip rims with damp clean dish cloth,before sealing, put salt in the water your putting the jars in,
yes, if you’re just canning it all raw in canning jars and the pressure canner then yes, it won’t scorch in the jars, you’re correct, but you won’t get away with using much dairy in your pressure cooker.
Don’t use a damp dishcloth unless it’s always hot. I prefer using a hot dishcloth and dipping it in warm vinegar that I’ve microwaved. (which, by the way, help to clean the microwave, especially if you add some fresh-squeezed lemon.
Thank you so much for this yummy recipe! Is there a way to can it for future use?
Hmmm…I could have sworn I providing that information in the article. Yes, you can bottle them, but do it raw as each of your jars act as their own little pressure canner. You must leave a 1 inch headroom though for these And you must be certain to wipe off the rims/lids so that no grease is on them as such will compromise your seal over time. Use papertowels with white vinegar on them to get them nice and clean. You don’t need to change the size of the meatballs at all. And you can use regular rice instead of minute rice if you’re preserving them this way as well.
Thank you so much for all that you do to help everyone . You are very talented . And kind.
That is one of our favorite meals. I use V8 juice instead of tomato soup add some green and red peppers. They are amazing cooked outside (camping).
Kellene,
Should you put the rack in the pressure cooker to put the meatballs on?
Will they stick to the bottom if you don’t? I have a standard 6qt. Presto cooker.
Thanks for your reply, can’t wait to make these.
Myra
P.S. you said to put then in raw to can…do you put the tomato juice & water on them as well or just the meatballs alone.
Thanks
I’m scared of using a pressure cooker. When I was a kid a relative had one blow up on her and my mom made us stay out of the kitchen when she used one. Have they become safer? Is there an idiot-proof way to use them or is it still risky?
Thank you,
Suzie
I followed the link above to your related article and used links in it to go to Kuhn Rikon’s website. About their pressue cooker they state, “no chance the lid can be removed until the pressure is released.” Does that mean there is no way it can explode since the lid can’t come off?
It also states that there are “no fewer than five unique back-up safety systems into our pressure cookers in order to prevent excessive pressure build-up.” Are these passive systems or is it something like an alarm that tells me I need to do something? In other words, is it idiot-proof?
I really do not care for the taste of canned chicken. Nevertheless, I’ve been trying to stock up on it for post-Collapse. I’d love to cook a real chicken and can it myself if I can be sure it’s not dangerous.
Thank you bunches,
Suzie
You’re talking about canning and cooking here. The two are different. The KuhnRikon is for pressure cooking. And no, there is no way that lid is coming off due to the fail-safe systems which are passive. However, it may very well burn to a crisp on the bottom if left unattended on your stove or it may depressurize by allowing the juices to come out the top, but even that is controlled and should only happen if you’ve filled it more than 2/3rds full. You literally CAN’T take the lid off until the pressure is fully released.
See our YouTube videos on pressure cooking and pressure canning on YouTube.com/preparednesspro
Thank you, Kellene, I sure will look for them. Thank you for all your time devoted to educating us.
Suzie