Frozen Crock Pot Meat - Spicy Tropical Meatballs

Found an awesome post over at Mommy's Fabulous Finds about pre-making easy crock-pot freezer meals.  I thought what an excellent way to save myself cooking time during the week.  Now that my husband is on Christmas break until January 7, he is home all day and can easy pop one of these puppies in the crock-pot for me and it will save us both time!  He really needs a break from art school.  He has been working really hard.

So this weekend I decided to make my own version of her Sweet and Sour Meatballs.  I changed quite a few ingredients and decided to rename them to Tropical Meatballs.  Here is my calorie breakdown:

SPICY TROPICAL MEATBALLS - SERVES 5

324 calories per serving

Spicy Tropical Meatballs

• 1 package of frozen turkey meatballs (I used Cooked Perfect) - about 27 meatballs
• 1 6oz can of pineapple chunks in water, not drained
• 1 sweet red bell pepper, sliced or diced (your choice)
• 1/3 of a bottle of World Harbor Sweet & Spicy Jamaican Style Jerk Marinade & Sauce

Only 160mg of sodium and 20 calories per serving!

CALORIE BREAKDOWN

5.5 meatballs - 252 calories
dole pineapple chunks - 28 calories

pepper - 5 calories

World Harbors Jamaican Sauce - 40 calories

INSTRUCTIONS

Toss in all ingredients into a gallon sized plastic baggie and place in freezer. When ready to use thaw in fridge overnight. Cook on low 4 hours or on high for 2 hours.

Feel free to serve this over brown rice whole grain (by Carolina) for an additional 150 calories per 3/4 cup or white rice for 160 calories per 1/4 cup.

NUTRITIONAL BREAKDOWN

Calories: 324
Carbs: 26
Fat: 16
Sodium: 1419
Sugar: 14

Originally I thought perhaps the marinade would have too much sodium (which as you can tell is always a concern of mine) but luckily (and happily) one serving of this marinade has 160mg of sodium (there are 2 servings in this recipe).

MY REVIEW

These meatballs were quite spicy.  If you like spice, these are great, if not, don't even think about it.  I ended up not eating the pineapple chunks, who likes hot pineapple?  But I am sure it mixed well with the marinade.  My husband LOVED these!  I will have to make them again but I will try to see how to lower the sodium amount because it's a little on the ridiculously high side.

Overall, 4 our of 5 stars.