Sausage-Cheese Balls {A slightly healthier adaptation!}

Good morning! Today I'm sharing a recipe that is tried and true. It is Betty Crocker's Sausage-Cheese Balls - but I've adapted them to make them slightly healthier, and I think they still taste the same as the original recipe. We really don't eat only sausage around here, I promise... haha... this is my third recipe so far on this blog featuring sausage! Whoops. ;)

I read on one of the websites describing this recipe that there has been two different verisions that Ms. Crocker has put out - one is a "1-2-3" version, where you use 1 lb of sausage, 2 cups of cheese, 3 cups of Bisquick, but somewhere along the line they changed it to "1-4-3" - 1 lb of sausage, 4 cups of cheese, and 3 cups of Bisquick. More cheese? Betty, you're a-okay in my book. ;)

But today, we're throwing that out the window in favor of something a little different. We're doing a "24-3ish-3" - 24oz, 3-ish cups of cheese and 3 cups of Bisquick. I'm not going to tote these as health food, but we're going to try to make these not so sinful (because you really can't stop at just 1 or 2!) We're also going to adapt the recipe in a way that makes this awesome for large family gatherings or office parties. We're going to roll about 150 meatballs! (yay?!). It's also a relatively cheap recipe if you can get a store brand "Bisquick" and a sale on sausage rolls.

Alright, so let's gather our ingredients:
• 3 cups Original Bisquick mix or a store brand baking mix works just as well. (I was able to get a big box of the store brand for $2 something vs. $4 something for the Bisquick brand.)
• 24 oz. (2 packages) of the Jimmy Dean "Reduced Fat" sausage ($3/for 2! yay)
• 3 "ish"* cups of colby or cheddar. Cheddar will make it a bit zingy-er.
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves, crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley or 1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes (I used the parsley flakes)
• If you're using the Jimmy Dean's reduced fat sausage, add about 1/2 teaspoon of powdered sage and/or a dash of oregano. If you're using a sausage roll with sage or other herbs in it, you wont need this.

You'll also want:
• Barbecue sauce or chili sauce, if desired. Ranch is pretty yummy too.
• A big mixing bowl
• 2 cookie sheets
• Pam Spray
• An oven
• A crockpot if you're taking them somewhere - a bowl if you're not taking them anywhere.

*I say "ish" because I had to shred my cheese... and I kind of eyeballed it. Bad blogger. This is thankfully one of those recipes where you really can't screw this up though... as long as you're around 2-3 cups you're good. 4 cups seems excessive.

Spray your cookie sheets with Pam Spray. This is a good time to preheat your oven to 350º.

Mix all ingredients into the mixing bowl. Don't attempt to mix this with a spoon - the best and easiest way to incorporate all of the ingredients is to use your hands. And about half way through you're going to freak out and think that this is too much baking mix!! It's not - it just takes a LONG time to incorporate it completely. Mix it up until it looks like my picture. And those are parsley flakes, not mold... I just realized that picture looks a little weird!

 Now, the (fun?) part begins. We're going to roll what feels like a billion sausage balls. The original recipe calls for them to be about an 1" - I rolled them to closer to 1/2-3/4", so slightly smaller to stretch them farther. I got 60 balls on this tray, 54 on another, and about 50 on another - so about 164 sausage balls.

Put your first tray in the oven. Cook for 25 minutes at 350º. While that one is cooking, make up another tray. You could probably cook both trays at the same time but I'm not sure what that would do with the cooking time. Once that first tray is done cooking and they've cooled for a minute or two, put in your second tray. Remove the first batch off the tray into a crockpot or bowl, and give that first tray a new coat of Pam spray. Make your third batch on this tray.

Cook your second tray 25 minutes, remove after 25 and after letting them cool for a minute, remove them to the crockpot or bowl. Place your third tray, 25 minutes and repeat until all sausage balls have cooked.

Now, some people like to immerse these and cover them in BBQ sauce - they are good that way, but if you're feeding them to an office crowd for example, put the BBQ on the side just in case someone doesn't care for BBQ.

Otherwise, they are yummy just the way they are! Serve them on toothpicks for extra fancy-ness. ;) So there you have it! Slightly healthier using the reduced fat sausage and they still taste great.

Did you love it? Share it with others and pin it to Pinterest! I'd appreciate it. :)

Sausage-Cheese Balls {A slightly healthier adaptation!}
Original recipe from Betty Crocker
Ingredients:
• 3 cups Original Bisquick mix or a store brand baking mix works just as well.
• 24 oz. (2 packages) of the Jimmy Dean "Reduced Fat" sausage
• 3 "ish"* cups of colby or cheddar.
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves, crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley or 1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
• If you're using the Jimmy Dean's reduced fat sausage, add about 1/2 teaspoon of powdered sage and/or a dash of oregano. If you're using a sausage roll with sage or other herbs in it, you wont need this.

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350º. Lightly grease 2-3 baking pans with Pam spray or other greasing agent.

2. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl with hands. Shape mixture into 1/2"-3/4" balls. Place in pan.

3. Bake 25 minutes or until brown. Immediately remove from pan and place in bowl or crockpot. Serve warm with BBQ sauce or other sauce for dipping.
Yields about 150 mini-sausage balls.