I made 5 game-day appetizers in my slow cooker. The Buffalo wings were a major crowd pleaser.

Football season is back, and Sundays are once again reserved for touchdowns, quality time with family and friends, and an all-important game-day snack spread.

I've made classics like Buffalo chicken dip countless times in my Crock-Pot, but this time I branched out with options like spicy wings, meatballs, and mac and cheese.

These slow-cooker meatballs from Chef Savvy are an easy, versatile game-day option. Serve them in tomato sauce, pile them into rolls for meatball subs, or pair them with pasta. I used a store-bought beef-and-pork meatball mix, but the rest of the ingredients are pantry staples.

I formed the mixture into medium-sized balls and placed them on a lightly greased sheet pan so they could brown in the oven briefly.

I could see flecks of chopped onion and parsley throughout the meat mixture. The recipe yields about 24 meatballs, and I ended up with exactly that many, so I knew I had portioned them correctly.

Once the meatballs were perfectly browned, I took them out of the oven.

I then started gathering the ingredients for the tomato sauce: crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning.

The meatballs fit in a single layer inside the slow cooker. I then added the tomato sauce ingredients and let it all cook on low for four hours.

It's fine if the meatballs overlap slightly in a smaller slow cooker. After four hours on low, mine still looked a little underdone, so I cooked them for another 30 minutes on high.

Finally, the meatballs were done — they were delicious. If you have any leftovers from your game-day party, they're tasty the next day, too.

I thought the meatballs were perfectly juicy and well-seasoned, while the tomato sauce tasted like homemade marinara that had been cooking on the stove for hours.

The next slow-cooker appetizer I made was a personal favorite for game days: Buffalo chicken wings.