Asian Glazed Turkey Meatballs

Name: Asian Glazed Turkey Meatballs
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Ingredients: 2 lbs ground turkey breast; 2 eggs; 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (plain, unseasoned); 4 cloves garlic; 2 scallions; 1/4 tsp ground ginger; 1 tsp kosher salt; fresh cracked pepper; 1/2 cup Hoisin sauce; 1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce; 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar; 1 tbsp corn starch; 3/4 cup water; 2 cloves garlic; 1 tsp ginger (fresh or paste); sesame seeds and scallions for garnish

January 23, 2021 By Steph 115 Comments

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Asian Glazed Turkey Meatballs are deliciously sticky and sweet. Ground turkey is seasoned with ginger, garlic, and scallions, and formed into bite-sized meatballs. The meatballs are slathered with a delicious sauce made with the flavors of hoisin, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and ginger. Served with rice and a veggie, these Asian Glazed Turkey Meatballs make for a perfectly well rounded meal (or meal prep). They also make a perfect bite-sized appetizer!

What you’ll need to make this recipe

The ingredients you’ll need for the meatballs are:

ground turkey breast (you can substitute ground chicken)
eggs
panko breadcrumbs
garlic
scallions
ground ginger
kosher salt
pepper

The ingredients you’ll need to make the sticky sauce are:

hoisin sauce
soy sauce
rice wine vinegar
ginger
garlic
corn starch
water

How to make the meatballs

I am going to walk you through how to make the meatball portion of this recipe first. Start by preheating your oven to 375F.

For this recipe, I use fat free ground turkey breast, but you can absolutely use ground chicken breast instead, or substitute whichever type of ground meat you prefer or have on hand. I use 2 lbs. for this recipe, and it makes 24 meatballs.

Since I made this for meal prep, I divided this recipe into 6 portions at 4 meatballs each.

Anyway, let’s make the meatballs. First, chop up your scallions and mince your garlic cloves. Then, dump your ground turkey into a large mixing bowl and add the scallions, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, garlic, panko, and eggs.

Using your hands, mix thoroughly, ensuring all ingredients are incorporated throughout the mixture.

Take a mini muffin tin and spray it liberally with cooking spray. (If you don’t have a mini muffin tin, a sheet pan works perfectly. I just like cooking my mini meatballs in a mini muffin tin!) Using a small scoop, scoop equal portions of the mixture and form them into 24 meatballs (tip: you can weigh the batch and then divide by 24 to get an equal measurement of each ball). For reference, meatballs weighed 1.5 ounces each, raw.

Place each formed meatball into the mini muffin tin (or on your sheet pan). Put them into the oven at 375F and bake for 15 minutes.

These taste great at this point, but they look pretty boring, and not very “glazed!” So let’s get to glazing!

How to make the Asian glaze

While the meatballs are cooking, this is the perfect time to get started on the glaze.

Get a sauce pan ready, and add the hoisin, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, ginger, garlic, corn starch, and water. Whisk everything together, and turn the heat to medium.

Cook the sauce for ten minutes, stirring frequently. The sauce will begin to bubble, and as it cooks, the cornstarch will thicken the ingredients to form that glaze we are looking for.

Putting it all together

Once the glaze has cooked for 10 minutes and is the right consistency, add the cooked meatballs to the sauce pan, and toss them around in the glaze so each one is coated thoroughly. You can cook the meatballs for another minute or two in the glaze; but since they are cooked already, they don’t have to cook at this point.

To serve, place the meatballs on a serving dish with sesame seeds and chopped scallions.

This meal pairs perfectly with rice and a vegetable. For meal prep, I paired these meatballs with roasted green beans. If you’ve never roasted green beans, you are seriously missing out! They make such an awesome side dish for a variety of meals.

To roast the green beans for this recipe, I did the following:

Preheat the oven to 425F.
I used two bags of fresh green beans.
Place them on a sheet pan, and spray them with cooking spray.
Add 1/2 tsp ground ginger and 1/2 tsp garlic powder to the green beans.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.
Sprinkle 1 tsp of sesame seeds on top.
Roast for 20-25 minutes, or until the green beans are tender and blistered-looking.

For meal prep, I divided the meatballs into 6 servings of 4 meatballs each, and the green beans.

To reheat, simply pop them in the microwave for a few minutes before eating. I store these in the fridge for 5-6 days for meal prep for the week, with no problem.