Thai Chicken Meatballs

Is there really anything better than a hot bowl of rice topped with perfect, juicy, little flavor bombs of meat, sentimentally known as meatballs? A sweet and spicy sauce drizzle and a cool, crunchy slaw on the side…stop it. This dish comes together pretty quick and the meatballs are all in one bowl, win!

Meatball Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken

• 1 egg

• 1/3 sleeve of Ritz crackers (crushed)

• 1 small shallot (minced)

• 4 cloves garlic (grated or minced)

• 1 knob fresh ginger (grated or minced)

• 1 hand full fresh cilantro (chopped)

• 1 tsp fish sauce

• dash of worcestershire sauce

• pinch of salt and black pepper

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

  Mix all your ingredients together in a big bowl. It’s that easy. The mix should be wet but not soppy, add more crackers if you feel like its too wet. Meatballs are very forgiving. Unless you insult their mother.

  Line a baking sheet with foil. Spray lightly with cooking spray.

  Shape your mix into balls. I never measure them out and I certainly don’t get fancy with a cookie scoop, I always go by the feel of it. If you must, feel free to use a scoop or even a large tablespoon to get the balls rolling. (ha!)

  This go round, I came out with roughly 16 meatballs. Line those puppies up on a baking sheet and they are ready to bake! 20-25 minutes.

  While the meatballs bake, make the sticky sauce. This sauce is totally optional, but I highly recommend it. We like it spicy at our house, so it’s got a healthy dose of crushed red pepper and sriracha. If you can’t handle the heat…adjust to your liking!

Sticky Sauce

• 1/2 cup soy sauce

• 2 TBS brown sugar

• 1 heaping TBS apricot preserves

• 1 TBS crushed red pepper flakes

• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar

• 1 clove garlic (grated)

• 1 TBS fresh ginger (grated)

• Healthy squirt of sriracha (optional)

  Combine all your ingredients into a small sauce pan over medium heat. Whisk occasionally until the sauce is thickened. For me, this took about 15 minutes. Drizzle, dip or coat your meatballs in the sticky sauce. Serve on a hot bed of rice with a crunchy veg, such as Asian Slaw (recipe on separate post).