Teriyaki meatballs are everything you love about a meatball in a sweet and sticky sauce! They’re positively irresistible!
Sometimes deciding what to cook is easy…I just go through my list of ideas and think about the things I’ve been wanting to cook and I have my menu in less than five minutes. Right now I have no fewer than five meals that I just have to make in the front of my brain in addition to two or three recipes I’ve been testing.
Other weeks it’s not so easy. Sometimes nothing sounds good, or I’m just so tired that I literally just can’t. Those are the weeks when Thursday night rolls around (shopping day is Friday) and at 9:00 (bedtime is 10:00) I still haven’t made a grocery list.
I guess it’s the fact that I just really ❤️ snack foods (have I mentioned that? I feel like I have mentioned that)…lately I’ve been stuck on making snacky sorts of meals since I’ve had Super Bowl on the brain, which has made meal planning so easy because I have approximately 85 things in my queue right now. Any time I can take a non-snack food and transform it into a snack food feels like a win for me. These teriyaki meatballs are definitely a win.
When I started thinking about teriyaki meatballs, I initially considered using chicken. Then I remembered how I feel about ground chicken (as in I’d really rather pretend that ground chicken doesn’t even exist) and I decided that my teriyaki meatballs would be classic beef and pork meatballs (like the ones I used in my spaghetti and meatballs). A little pork, a little more beef, some stuff to bind it together, fry it up, teriyaki sauce. Yesssssss.
We ate these teriyaki meatballs as a meal with zucchini noodles, but they’d be perfect with rice or, if you’re serving them at a party, just on their own. I didn’t make extra sauce, but if you wanted them to be really saucy, you could totally double the teriyaki recipe. I think I might do that next time!
Mary
Yield: About 36 meatballs
15 minPrep Time:
15 minTotal Time:
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 ounces saltine crackers (about 15) - crushed
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 pound ground pork
- 1 pound ground beef, preferably 85% lean
- 1 egg yolk
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 cup canola or vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup dry white wine (I used Chardonnay)
- 2 tablespoons sherry
- 2 tablespoons date sugar or brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
- dash sesame oil
Instructions
- Line a sheet pan with paper towels and place it in the oven. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
- In a small bowl, combine the crushed saltines with the milk and allow to stand for five minutes. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the sauce ingredients. Set aside the sauce.
- In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, ground beef, saltine mixture, egg yolk, salt, and pepper. Use your hands to thoroughly combine the ingredients but use a light touch-don't squeeze! Portion the mixture into tablespoon-sized balls.
- In a large (I used 12-inch) skillet, preheat the oil over medium-high heat. Cook the meatballs in the hot oil, turning to brown on all sides, until completely browned. Using tongs, remove to the paper towel lined sheet pan in the preheated oven. It took me 3 batches to cook them all.
- Once all of the meatballs have been cooked, drain away all but about a teaspoon of the oil. Add the sauce mixture to the pan and set the heat to medium. Cook until reduced and thickened.
- Add the meatballs to the sauce in the pan and carefully stir to coat. Serve immediately with rice or with toothpicks for eating as snacks.
Comments