Asian-Style Meatballs with Sweet Chili Sauce
Tasty, tasty, tasty little Asian meatballs with a delectable sweet (and kicky) chili sauce. Serve over brown rice or quinoa for a healthy, easy meal!
Oh man, if you love meatballs. And if you love Asian-style flavors. And if you love simple, quick, healthy dinners. I think you’re going to love this one.
While this amazing Asian meatballs recipe isn’t quite in the 30-minute category (looking at right around 40 minutes, so not too terribly bad), it’s a good start to the new year.
It’s fast-ish. It’s super easy. It’s healthy. And wow, those flavors.
You already know I’m a sucker for many an Asian-inspired dish:
Asian Garlic Noodles
Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Dan Dan Noodles
Asian Noodle Salad
Korean Beef and Rice
Roast Pork Tenderloin with Asian Glaze
And these Asian meatballs are right up there with all the other faves. They are delicious!
You can use a variety of ground meat – ground beef, ground pork, ground turkey or a combo. Super adaptable. And while the list of ingredients may seem long, you literally throw all the meatball ingredients together and mash them on up. Same with the sauce, except you’ll whisk instead of mash.
I love serving these meatballs over brown rice or quinoa. For the brown rice, I either make this baked brown rice or this no-fail stovetop version or just throw the brown rice in the instant pot – 1 cup rice to 1 1/4 cups broth and cook on high pressure for 22 minutes.
But the tasty meatballs are delicious served on their own or with a yummy side like this chopped Thai salad. Yum.
One Year Ago: Healthy Dark Chocolate Almond Joy Bites
Two Years Ago: Chicken Tortilla Soup {Instant Pot, Stovetop, Slow Cooker}
Three Years Ago: Whole Grain Cinnamon Applesauce Bread
Four Years Ago: Korean Beef and Rice {Or Quinoa}: Simple 20-Minute Meal
Five Years Ago: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Asian-Style Meatballs with Sweet Chili Sauce
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 2 pounds ground meat, beef, pork, turkey or a combo – (see note)
- 1 cup panko or regular bread crumbs
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 green onions, white and green parts finely chopped
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce, I use low-sodium
- 1 tablespoon finely minced ginger, or ginger paste
- 3 cloves garlic, finely minced or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- Zest from 1 lime, about a teaspoon
- Pinch of crushed red pepper, more or less to taste (optional)
Sauce:
- ⅓ cup soy sauce, I use low-sodium
- ⅓ cup sweet chili sauce (see note)
- ¼ cup fresh lime juice, from 2-3 limes
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly spray with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, add the ground meat. Add all the other meatball ingredients and mix until well-combined (I just dig in there with my hands). Roll 2-3 tablespoons of the mixture into meatballs and place 1/2-inch apart or so on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until cooked through (an instant-read thermometer should read 165 degrees F in the middle of a meatball).
- While the meatballs cook, whisk together all the sauce ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl or small saucepan and heat until simmering.
- Using tongs or a spatula, remove the meatballs from the baking sheet onto a plate or tray. Drizzle the cooked meatballs with the warm sauce and garnish with additional green onions and toasted sesame seeds, if desired. Serve the meatballs on their own or over brown rice, white rice, quinoa, etc.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe (inspired by this recipe at Once Upon a Chef – changed quite a bit of the ingredients in the meatballs and the sauce as well as the cooking time/temp, etc)
Delicious and easy… perfect week night meal! I doubled the sauce, added broccoli florets to the sheet pan for the last 15 minutes of roasting the meatballs…drizzled a bit of the sauce over the broccoli. Thanks Mel!
Delicious! Used 1 pound beef and 1 pound turkey. Substituted a few shakes of onion powder for the green onions. I will definitely be adding this to our rotation.
So, I switched up the protein to ground shark. Yeah, you read that correctly, shark. Instead of baking I dropped into simmering water and cooked for ten minutes. Everything else was per recipe. They were AMAZING! So much flavor and used ingredients I generally have on hand (love ginger and cilantro in those tubes you get in the produce section!). Definitely try this super tasty recipe.
Hey Mel! I made these meatballs last night except I did them in my pressure cooker. I did double the sauce and I browned the meatballs first on the saute function. They turned out wonderfully. Thanks again for another great recipe!
These were delicious and so easy to make!!
Delicious flavor. I doubled the sauce and added some corn starch slurry to thicken it up. Once the meatballs were cooked, I put them in a hot pan on the stove top to brown them up. The sauce was great over the rice. Made the thai crunch salad as a side. Thanks!
This recipe was delicious! I doubled the sauce like I usually do with all of your meatball recipes to put on rice or steamed veggies. We had extra sauce leftover so I mixed it with some mayo and drizzled it on top of our caliornia rolls the next night (we used your recipe or that also). I was great! Thanks for posting such fun, delicious recipes!
Another winner!! My 5 year old son declared this “scrumptious!” as he devoured every bite! Per suggestions, we made extra sauce and I even dribbled some onto some steamed broccoli to give it some extra flavor alongside the meatballs, seriously such a wonderful and healthy dinner! You’ve done it again Mel!
Thanks so much, Bri!
Delicious!
Just browned the ground beef, added the sauce and served over rice. I sauted a bunch of fresh veggies and topped mine with those (broccoli, onion, carrots, cabbage). Yum! 5 out of 6 family members loved it! The 6th was a picky 7 yr old who didn’t try it!
What a great way to simplify this meal!
This was amazing! I doubled the sauce as we are saucy people and my 4 year old kept asking for more (a rare occurrence!). This one is a keeper!
Thanks, Adriana!
I’ll be trying this one soon- your teriyaki meatballs are already a definite favorite around here! BUT. My real reason for commenting is to ask what that salad is in the background of your first photo? It doesn’t quite look like the Thai chopped salad (which I love) and I’m curious! Thanks for all you do, love your blog!
It’s basically just a thrown together Thai-inspired salad – edamame, carrots, cabbage, romaine lettuce, bell peppers and then we drizzled a Thai peanut sauce dressing over the top. 🙂
Loved, loved, loved these! We ate them on braised turnip greens cooked with bacon (great for a Keto or Paleo diet) And some leftover rice. I ended up finding a recipe for the sweet chili sauce and it was super easy and yummy! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Wow, the whole combo sounds delicious and way to go on the homemade sweet chili sauce!
These are SO delicious! My house smelled awesome while they were baking 🙂
I formed the meatballs, put them on a half sheet pan, and froze them. After I froze them, I popped them in a freezer bag. The night before I made them, I thawed half of them in the fridge. When I baked them, I had half of the pan frozen and half of the pan thawed. They baked from frozen just fine in 25 minutes! My scoop was kind of small (I got 51 meatballs), but I was glad the frozen ones didn’t need extra time!
Just thought make-ahead-friends would want to know!
You are amazing, Becky! Thanks for sharing!
Great recipe! Came together super fast and had great flavor. I 1.5x the recipe using 3 lbs of lean ground turkey, but kept the sauce the same because I ran out of soy sauce. I thought it was still plenty of sauce. Served it with stir fried broccoli for a super quick and yummy dinner.
Glad it worked out for you, Vicky!
Loved these! The first meat balls I’ve ever made that have actually turned out! Hooray!
Happy to hear that!!
Yum. We are big fans of your Meatballs and Lemon rice (I do hope that’s the recipe name) so I tried these tonight. Delicious, not too fussy to make and the sauce is delicious (I left out the brown sugar since we don’t care for overly sweet things). Yum
Thanks, Jean!
Making this tonight! Thought I’d thank you for your kids favorite meals post where you said your stroganoff is requested at birthdays. It is made weekly in our home! The first couple times I made and fried the meatballs. After that I deconstructed the meal and cooked the meat with grated onion and spices. It’s way faster for me than making and frying meatballs. I’m going to try this the same way ;).
We enjoyed these tasty meatballs (made with ground turkey), and the sauce is wonderful! My grocery didn’t carry Mae Ploy, so I bought Thai Kitchen Sweet Chili Sauce, which worked fine. A great healthy main dish!
The recipe is easy to cut in half for a small family. I made the full amount of sauce, though, and I recommend that if you are sauce lovers, like us.
Thanks for the feedback, Ellen!
Yummy, yummy, yummy! My whole family loves this recipe. For my 3 year old no sauce but he ate several meat balls & loved it!
I used half hamburger & half sausage.
Thank you!
PS If you don’t have a lime on hand you can use one or two drops of Lime essential oil.
Thanks for the comment, Hillary! Love the addition of sausage (and lime EO!)
Oh man this looks so good. I am allergic to citrus and am wondering how this would be without the lime.
I think you could leave it out and be just fine without that little pop of fresh flavor.
Looks tasty, trying it now! Unfortunatley forgot to get limes so I will try with fresh squeezed orange juice instead of lime…hope it works! I love all Mel’s recipes!
Let me know how they turn out!
The meatballs themselves fell a little short of my expectations, which was surprising given the amount of delicious and flavorful ingredients (though against my better judgment I used all ground beef– will try again with chicken or pork)— but the sauce? I want to put it on everything! It was truly the star of the show.
Tristin – that’s good feedback for others – sounds like the 100% ground beef may not let the flavors come through quite like a lighter ground turkey/pork.
Simple and delish – loved them!
Thanks, Toni!
My husband says this recipe is a keeper. He really liked them. Next time I will double the sauce recipe to drizzle over rice.
Thanks for the feedback, Mary!
I made these last night exactly to recipe and they were just ok. Still good but not great. My husband and family ate it but it tasted like too much lime or something.. I love all you Le recipes but this one didn’t do it for me. Thanks anyways!
Sorry this one didn’t work out for you, Rachelle!
The second I saw these, I immediately knew I needed to make them tonight! They are delicious! Easy peasy! I used dark meat turkey. I doubled the sauce as I love tons of sauce and plan to freeze some of them in the sauce so they do not dry out. Big kiss for the excellent recipe! xo
So happy you loved them – thanks for making them and checking in so fast to let me know!
I’m eating them again now! They are so delish the next day! I definitely recommend doubling the sauce so when reheated for leftovers they are nice and juicy. Many thanks again! xo
Happy to hear this, Jennifer! Thanks for letting me know!
I made these tonight using some items from my pantry, I didn’t have bread crumbs, green onions, cilantro or fresh ginger, but I used oats, onion powder, ground ginger and dried parsley and they were amazing! I loved the punch of lime in the meatballs and the sauce and it was a breeze to throw together after work. Thanks for a meatball recipe familiar enough to be enjoyed by the whole family but different enough that I wasn’t sighing with monotony. Definitely a keeper!
Thanks for including your variations, Caitlin! Glad they were a hit!
This is going on my menu plan! I’ve loved all of your other meatball recipes I’ve made, so I can’t wait to try these!
I was wondering if you could recommend a brand for a more mild sweet chili sauce?
If I remember right, I think the Frank’s brand is more mild. You could also sub in another kind of sauce – maybe like a sweet and sour sauce (sold in the same aisle) that’s tangy and sweet but not spicy?
I love it when a recipe adds in the equivalent of powder vs. fresh ingredients. It saves me money because I usually already have the spice available at home and don’t have to go looking for it. I can’t wait to try this!
LOVE this idea!! We’re huge fans of meatballs in our house. Every few months I’ll make 8 or so lbs. of meatballs, bake them up and freeze for future meals. We’ve done teriyaki turkey, beef, and even a chicken parm meatball. Like I said, we love them. Cannot wait to try these! Thanks for another awesome idea Mel.
What a great idea (and what great planning!). Ready to go homemade meatballs in the freezer would be awesome.
I like to use frozen meatballs – any idea if I can just throw the sauce on the meatballs in my instant pot? If you don’t know, I may just try it out — then I’ll let you know!! 🙂
I actually don’t know, but I definitely think it’s worth a try! Let me know how it goes. 🙂
Am I first to comment? It’s a banner moment! These meatballs look amazing and have just solved the “what’s for dinner” conversation I was having with myself. Thank you, as always, Mel, for the inspiration! Have a great day! Rebecca
Haha, thanks for commenting! 🙂 And I hope you love these!