Satay Chicken Meatballs Recipe
Course: Chicken, Main CourseServings
2
servingsPrep time
30
minutesCooking time
40
minutesEven though the cooler fall and winter months may feel a long way off at the moment, before you know it, sweater season will be upon us once more, and it’ll be time to hunker down indoors and seek comfort from our favorite dishes.
Whenever myself, or my family, are craving something warming, comforting, and ever-so-slightly spicy, my satay chicken meatballs are my go-to dish, and they work every single time. Popular all year round, I particularly enjoy these when it’s colder outside, or when the weather’s poor, though they also work great on a warm summer’s evening as the sun begins to set.
Now, I love meatballs. I love them with pasta, I love them in subs, I love them on their own, I just love them. My absolute, most favorite way to enjoy meatballs, however, has to be by doing them in a rich, creamy, coconutty, and slightly fiery satay sauce. Once you try them, you’ll feel the same way!
Satay sauce, which is a dish of Indonesian origin, traditionally uses peanuts, but I leave them out as there are a lot of nutty elements that shine through thanks to the coconut milk, flour, and oil I use.
My satay chicken meatballs use minced chicken rather than beef or pork, as it helps them to hold their shape and stay firm during the cooking process. The meatballs are also leaner as the satay sauce is quite rich. The contrast in lean meat and rich, coconutty, oily sauce works very well. It’s a fairly simple dish but uses heaps of fresh ingredients and is extremely nourishing.
This really is one of the easiest dishes you could ever wish for, though there are a few issues you might need to overcome. My satay sauce for example, uses a couple of rare sauces that you may struggle to find at your grocery store. Fish sauce is a prime example of this, though you can leave it out if you have to. I would recommend sourcing some (sorry, bad pun alert) if you can, though, because it gives the dish a real salty, umami flavor that ties the meatballs and the sauce together perfectly. Sriracha is another one you may struggle to find in some stores, though regular hot sauce can be substituted. It likely won’t be quite as good, but it’ll still be pretty epic.
What I especially love about this dish, and what you’ll love too, is the fact that it’s simple to prepare. You simply combine your meatball ingredients together in a bowl, shape into balls, and cook. As they cook, you mix your sauce ingredients together, smother the meatballs in the sauce when they’re nearly cooked, return to the oven, and finish off. Serve them with some freshly cooked basmati rice, or long grain rice, and you’re all set. Ideally you should serve them with basmati as the fragrant, nutty, slightly perfumed flavor of the rice just compliments the flavors in this dish perfectly.
This dish is best enjoyed fresh from the oven, with steaming hot, fluffy basmati rice. You can enjoy it the next day, and it’ll still taste great, but there’s just something about enjoying it fresh that can’t be replicated the next day. Once those meatballs go into the oven and you’ve got your sauce ready to go, get a pan ready for your rice, or a rice cooker, and get your basmati rice on!
I like to get extra fancy and finish the meatballs and rice with some sliced green onions/scallions, and a few lime wedges. These not only look great, but they help lift the flavours even further. Yum!
Whenever myself, or my family, are craving something warming, comforting, and ever-so-slightly spicy, my satay chicken meatballs are my go-to dish, and they work every single time. Popular all year round, I particularly enjoy these when it’s colder outside, or when the weather’s poor, though they also work great on a warm summer’s evening as the sun begins to set.
Now, I love meatballs. I love them with pasta, I love them in subs, I love them on their own, I just love them. My absolute, most favorite way to enjoy meatballs, however, has to be by doing them in a rich, creamy, coconutty, and slightly fiery satay sauce. Once you try them, you’ll feel the same way!
Satay sauce, which is a dish of Indonesian origin, traditionally uses peanuts, but I leave them out as there are a lot of nutty elements that shine through thanks to the coconut milk, flour, and oil I use.
My satay chicken meatballs use minced chicken rather than beef or pork, as it helps them to hold their shape and stay firm during the cooking process. The meatballs are also leaner as the satay sauce is quite rich. The contrast in lean meat and rich, coconutty, oily sauce works very well. It’s a fairly simple dish but uses heaps of fresh ingredients and is extremely nourishing.
This really is one of the easiest dishes you could ever wish for, though there are a few issues you might need to overcome. My satay sauce for example, uses a couple of rare sauces that you may struggle to find at your grocery store. Fish sauce is a prime example of this, though you can leave it out if you have to. I would recommend sourcing some (sorry, bad pun alert) if you can, though, because it gives the dish a real salty, umami flavor that ties the meatballs and the sauce together perfectly. Sriracha is another one you may struggle to find in some stores, though regular hot sauce can be substituted. It likely won’t be quite as good, but it’ll still be pretty epic.
What I especially love about this dish, and what you’ll love too, is the fact that it’s simple to prepare. You simply combine your meatball ingredients together in a bowl, shape into balls, and cook. As they cook, you mix your sauce ingredients together, smother the meatballs in the sauce when they’re nearly cooked, return to the oven, and finish off. Serve them with some freshly cooked basmati rice, or long grain rice, and you’re all set. Ideally you should serve them with basmati as the fragrant, nutty, slightly perfumed flavor of the rice just compliments the flavors in this dish perfectly.
This dish is best enjoyed fresh from the oven, with steaming hot, fluffy basmati rice. You can enjoy it the next day, and it’ll still taste great, but there’s just something about enjoying it fresh that can’t be replicated the next day. Once those meatballs go into the oven and you’ve got your sauce ready to go, get a pan ready for your rice, or a rice cooker, and get your basmati rice on!
I like to get extra fancy and finish the meatballs and rice with some sliced green onions/scallions, and a few lime wedges. These not only look great, but they help lift the flavours even further. Yum!
Ingredients
- Meatballs
500 g (1 lb) minced chicken
1/2 cup green onion chopped
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 egg
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sriracha sauce
3 tbsp garlic ginger paste
4 tbsp coconut flour
4 tbsp sesame oil
- Sauce ingredients
2 tbsp coconut oil
85 g (3 oz) coconut milk
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp garlic ginger paste
1 tbsp Sriracha sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup peanut butter
Directions
- In a large bowl, add all the ingredients for the meatballs.
- Mix everything until you get a homogeneous mixture.
- Form regular-sized meatballs
- Saute the meatballs for 3-4 minutes on sesame oil until golden brown
- Put them in a baking dish and bake at 220 degrees C° (428 F) for 15 minutes
- While the meatballs are baking, let’s prepare the sauce. Pour coconut milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- After it comes to a boil, add the rest of the sauce ingredients to it, reduce the heat to a minimum and cook for another 5 minutes, until all the ingredients are fully combined. Our sauce is ready!
- Get the meatballs out from the oven, pour the sauce on top. Then, put it back to the oven for another 10 minutes to make sure we combine fully all the flavors
- Serve the finished dish with Basmati rice. Garnish with green onions and lime slices.
