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.
Originally published March 2016.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Honey Garlic Meatballs
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 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup honey
- ½ cup low sodium soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon Chinese 5 Spice Powder
- ½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoon corn starch dissolved in ¼ 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 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground dry thyme
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 4 tablespoon finely chopped green onion
- 2 tablespoon freshly grated ginger, substitute 2 teaspoon powdered ginger if necessary
- 2 cloves minced garlic
Instructions
To prepare the sauce
- Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
- Add the minced garlic and sauté for only a minute or so until it softens but does not brown.
- Add the water, honey, soy sauce, 5 spice powder and pepper. (Do not add salt, there is plenty on the soy sauce.)
- 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
- Pour the milk over the breadcrumbs to soak while you gather the rest of the ingredients.
- Put all ingredients in a large bowl and mix together well.
- Form into 2 inch balls. Keeping your hands wet with cold water prevents the mixture from sticking to your hands.
- 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.
- 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.
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Nutrition Information
Yield
6Serving Size
6 6 servingsAmount Per Serving Calories 526Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 128mgSodium 1020mgCarbohydrates 65gFiber 1gSugar 48gProtein 40g
These sound good Barry. Thank you and I'm looking forward to your other meatball recipes.
I gave this recipe a try and it was very good. Would make again. Next time I will try the recipe with chicken thighs.
Have you ever made these in a slow cooker ??
NO but as long as you brown the meatballs, It should be good.
Where would I get Chinese 5 spice powder?
I see it in the supermarket spice aisle all the time but I mostly buy it at a bulk spice store. Much less expensive that way.
Hi Barry! Thank U very much for the recipe! I'm Brazilian and I lived in Canada, where I tried for the first time. I just did you're recipe, and it's my Canada coming back!! Thank u so much!
Made this tonight. Easy and delicious! Will make again! My husband said the sauce would be great on ribs!!
I love these! Hands down the best meatball recipe I have!
Simple and delicious.
Thanks again Barry for great recipes!
Chelsea
I made this recipe and forgot to brown the meatballs and the recipe was fantastic.
I made this for a family get-together this past weekend. There were 12 of us so I doubled the recipe and served it over basmati rice with garlic bread and caesar salad. It was a HUGE hit with the family. Thanks again Barry. I'll be looking for more recipes for a crowd for next summer (hint, hint).
Barry, do you freeze the meatballs raw, before cooking? Then is it necessary to thaw them or can you just cook from frozen?
They sound great.
Many thanks,
Cathy
I thaw them before cooking.
Can you freeze these after cooked?? These are delicious! Thanks for Recipe.
Don't see why not.
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.
I use the microwave method, in short spurts but in a glass container. I don't ever microwave commercial plastic containers.
Any thoughts of a new cookbook in the near future?
Perhaps next year. I have a couple of ideas in mind.
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?
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.
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!
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.