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Honey Garlic Meatballs – with an easy Honey Garlic Sauce recipe

Honey Garlic Meatballs with an easy Honey Garlic Sauce recipe. Make beef or pork meatballs with the easiest, most delicious Honey Garlic Sauce you’ll find.

Honey Garlic Meatballs close up featured image

Honey Garlic Meatballs

Honey Garlic Meatballs used to be a bit of a go-to recipe at our house. It actually surprised me that I hadn’t posted this recipe yet.

With about 1500 recipes on site now, it gets hard to keep track sometimes. Still, as pot luck favourites or quick dinner ideas go, you can’t beat a simple meal of honey garlic meatballs. 

A background of bulbs of fresh garlic for sale at a market

Can you ever get enough garlic?

It’s a great dish to double or triple when you are feeding a crowd. I’ve even served them as as party finger food.

I sometimes glaze them in the oven and serve with tooth picks for the latter purpose. Whenever I make meatballs, I rarely, if ever, make a single batch. I always make enough for at least two meals.

I then freeze half on a recycled styrofoam meat tray for next time. Then it’s only to pull them from the freezer to thaw during the day.

Then, it’s just a few minutes to finish the preparation and sauce before dinner. 

Honey Garlic Meatballs on a white serving plate

Honey Garlic Meatballs

Grinding your own meat makes all the difference.

One of the reasons I’ve been making more meatballs lately, is that I’m more and more taking the little extra time to grind my own pork and beef.

That’s accomplished using my meat grinder attachment on my KitchenAid Mixer. The difference it makes is quite substantial.

As you can see from the photo below, the end product of grinding your own meat looks like nothing you would find. in the supermarket.

Coarse Ground Beef Chuck Blade Roast

Coarse Ground Beef Chuck/Blade Roast. 

First, is the ability to be able  to control the fat content of the ground meat. Plus,  I love the ability to control the coarseness of the grind.

I tend to use the coarse grinding plate for a meatier meatball. I find it makes for a less spongy, more pleasing meatball.

The meatier, less spongy texture that coarsely ground pork or beef makes in meatballs is what I really love.

If you’ve never ground your own chuck roast for burgers, you are really missing out there too. The flavour is just so much better than any regular ground beef that I’ve tried.

Honey in a glass pot with a solid white background.

We generally use organic honey in our recipes.

My kids loved these meatballs and poured the sauce over the simple steamed rice that we served with them. A couple of simple steamed veggies for a complete meal is all that we needed in addition.

Stay tuned for a couple more great meatball meal recipe ideas that I have planned soon.

Looking for more inspiration?

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Honey Garlic Meatballs photo with title text for Pinterest

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Originally published March 2016. 
Honey Garlic Meatballs close up featured image
Yield: 6 6 servings

Honey Garlic Meatballs

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Honey Garlic Meatballs with an easy Honey Garlic Sauce recipe - make beef or pork meatballs with the easiest, most delicious Honey Garlic Sauce you'll find.

Ingredients

For the sauce

  • 4 cloves minced garlic
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice Powder
  • 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp corn starch dissolved in 1/4 cup water, as a thickening slurry

For the meatballs

  • 2 lbs coarsely ground lean pork, or beef or half & half of both
  • 1 cup bread crumbs, lightly packed
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp ground dry thyme
  • ½ tsp ground cumin
  • 4 tbsp finely chopped green onion
  • 2 tbsp freshly grated ginger, substitute 2 tsp powdered ginger if necessary
  • 2 cloves minced garlic

Instructions

To prepare the sauce

  1. Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
  2. Add the minced garlic and sauté for only a minute or so until it softens but does not brown.
  3. Add the water, honey, soy sauce, 5 spice powder and pepper. (Do not add salt, there is plenty on the soy sauce.)
  4. Let this mixture simmer for a few minutes then thicken with the slurry of cornstarch and water. Stir constantly as you add the slurry to the sauce. cook for an additional minute before taking the sauce off the heat.

To prepare the meatballs

  1. Pour the milk over the breadcrumbs to soak while you gather the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Put all ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well.
  3. Form into 2 inch balls. Keeping your hands wet with cold water prevents the mixture from sticking to your hands.
  4. Brown the meatballs on all sides in a non stick frying pan for about 10 minutes. You want to get some good colour on them.
  5. Add the meatballs to a small covered casserole dish and pour the sauce over them. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for 30-40 minutes; the sauce should be bubbling well at this point. Serve over steamed rice or thin Chinese noodles.

Recommended Products

Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.

Nutrition Information

Yield

6

Serving Size

6 6 servings

Amount Per Serving Calories 526Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 128mgSodium 1020mgCarbohydrates 65gFiber 1gSugar 48gProtein 40g

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Susan

Monday 30th of October 2023

Hi Barry, the meatballs sound delicious, I was wondering what they would be like Using minced Turkey

Paula

Thursday 1st of October 2020

I didn't use the meatball recipe, I bought some premade ones. Maybe that's why these were WAY, WAY too sweet. Not a fan. The sauce was almost like a dessert.

Hrelate

Thursday 3rd of October 2019

Hi Barry, I made this recipe yesterday night. Easy to cook and delicious it was! I will make it again. Thanks for posting an amazing recipe!

Diane

Wednesday 2nd of October 2019

Hello Barry, I cannot find the Chinese 5 spice powder in my supermarkets. Is there a substitute or can I just leave it out? Also, when you list breadcrumbs do you mean the finely ground breadcrumbs or just use some bread ripped up small and then pour the milk over to soften?

Barry C. Parsons

Saturday 5th of October 2019

I find it in the supermarket spice aisle or at the bulk store. There are also homemade versions if you google it. Substitute ground ginger in a pinch.

Diana

Friday 27th of September 2019

Hi Barry, Was wondering the best way to liquify crystallized bottled honey for use in recipes. A couple of suggestions I’ve heard were 1) short spurts of heat in microwave, 2) placing the container in warm water til the honey is liquid. Are there any other means of doing so? Would appreciate your take on this.

Barry C. Parsons

Saturday 28th of September 2019

I use the microwave method, in short spurts but in a glass container. I don't ever microwave commercial plastic containers.

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