Pellet Smoker Cooking: Smoked Meatballs w/Sauce over Kraut

May 29 2014

I wanted a recipe to use some of my homemade kraut with. I found the perfect one by Kukla at food52.com. It was beer braised meatballs over quick sauerkraut. There was a photo of it used to make a sandwich and it looked delicious! Food 52 is my favorite site for recipes and ideas I can adapt to my pellet smoker cooking. There are some great cooks there.

Kukla used a mix of beef chuck and veal for her meatballs and I used beef chuck and pork steak. It was a beautiful day to cook out and I enjoyed taking my time with the cooking and having some good beer! It’s always fun to try a new recipe for the first time.

About noon I got all my ingredients ready for the meatballs, ran it through my grinder using the coarse blade. I just made half of her recipe and it made 12 meatballs. I placed them in the fridge until I was ready to cook.

I cleaned out my smoker, put a new layer of foil on the drip pan and filled the pellet bin. I mixed up the mustard sauce and I had an hour and a half to enjoy the day before firing up the smoker to cook.

Kukla used a good Belgium lager beer and I used a Yuengling Hoppin Helles, a Germen Helles style beer in my cooking steps.

At 4:00 I put the meatballs on smoke, 170 to 180 deg. F for an hour and then went to 250 deg. grill level temp. They would cook another hour so I had plenty of time to get my ingredients ready and do the kraut. I used a half head of cabbage and about a pint of my kraut and only used a tablespoon of the vinegar. The carrot I sliced with a veggie peeler and then cut about 1 inch long. I toasted some mustard seeds and then added the olive oil, carrots, onions and mushrooms and sautéed until soft. I added the cabbage and covered for about 10 minutes on low heat. I uncovered and added in my brown sugar and vinegar and cooked a while then added in the kraut.

In between cooking the kraut at 1 hour 15 minutes I placed the meatballs in a cast iron skillet and back on the smoker at 325 deg. After 20 minutes I added the beer and lowered the temp to 180 deg. I went in and added the beer to the kraut and let it and the meatballs all get happy until 6:00 and served it all up.

I served the wife and I both 3 meatballs topped with the sauce over the kraut. We had some Italian bread and butter with it. We both loved this dish! I used Dusseldorf mustard in the sauce and it is on the mild side; for me it could have been spicier or some added horseradish would kick it up some. My wife liked the sauce the way it was. This is definitely a keeper recipe for us and if I don’t have any of my kraut on hand I know it will be good per Kukla’s recipe. Thanks Kukla for a great recipe and permission to repost it!

Printable recipe by Kukla

Mustard seeds and coriander