Asian Quinoa Meatballs
Healthy, nutritious and packed with so much flavor. Perfect as an appetizer or a light dinner!
Meatballs don’t get as much credit as they should. They’re incredibly versatile, they’re fun to eat, and they can either work as an appetizer or a main dish. Plus, it’s literally a ball of meat!
But for those cutting back on some heavy calories from all that meatball goodness, I have the perfectly lightened up version with quinoa.
The quinoa here is a great substitute for some of the meat, and provides an excellent source of protein too – all the while keeping it light on your pants.
Best of all, not only are these meatballs lightened up but they’re also baked to absolute tender perfection.
The sauce is also packed with tons of flavor – you can even set some aside and toss it on some rice or even a side of quinoa. You’ll be glad you did.
And if you’re anything like us, you’ll double the batch and serve these on game day, and save the rest for a light dinner the very next night!
Asian Quinoa Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground turkey
- ¾ cup cooked quinoa
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ teaspoon sesame seeds
For the sauce
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9x13 baking dish or coat with nonstick spray.
- In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, quinoa, garlic, onions, egg, soy sauce, sesame oil, Sriracha, salt and pepper, to taste. Using a wooden spoon or clean hands, stir until well combined. Roll the mixture into 1 1/4-to-1 1/2-inch meatballs, forming about 18-20 meatballs.
- Place meatballs onto the prepared baking dish and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until all sides are browned and meatballs are cooked through.
- To make the sauce, whisk together soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, sugar, sesame oil, Sriracha and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan over medium high heat.
- In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and 1 tablespoon water. Stir into soy sauce mixture until thickened, about 2 minutes.
- Serve meatballs immediately with sauce, garnished with green onion and sesame seeds.
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My favorite recipe! I make all the time!! I usually make as lettuce wraps with jalepenos and pickled carrots white rice and spicy ranch! YUM!!
I absolutely love this recipe? One of our favorites. My daughter is in college and wants me to make these for her. Has anybody tried freezing them?
Delicious meatball recipe! I used 2.3 lbs of sirloin ground beef, 90% lean. I baked the meatballs for 15-20 minutes at 400 and then broiled for 2 mins or so to dry it up a bit. I don’t like greasy meatballs. Super tasty! Thank you for the recipes! I recommend specific recipes of yours to my nutrition clients on a regular basis. Thank you for the quality and easy ingredient recipes you provide to the world through your recipes! It makes my life better!
I love all the recipes I have tried from your site! I just made the meatballs to bake a later today, but am a bit worried as they were more like “meatblobs”. I am hoping they stay together after cooking. I used the TJ’s 99% fat free turkey, but probably should have dried it a bit more like another comment suggested. Question: when you say “2 green onions”, do you mean the whole thing, just the white, just the green? I only used the white part up to the “chive” portion, so maybe that is also why the balls were falling apart a bit. Any thoughts?
These meatballs were delicious. Definitely a winner with my family and officially in the dinner rotation. Thanks!!!
Another hit from this website! Absolutely delicious! Easy to follow directions with ingredients I already have on hand. Will definitely be making again! I combined this recipe with a recipe (see below) called thai peanut spaghetti squash because one of my family members is a vegetarian.
Meat free version.
Made these without mince as I didn’t have any in the house. Added a bit more cooked quinoa and it tasted so good. Such a hit and a great way to get a meat free option in.
These are so so good, no changes to the recipe, and have become a regular in our house. They’re super satisfying but fresh. We usually pair with brown rice and broccoli.
These are great. Didn’t have quinoa on hand so subbed steam cauliflower and it turned out amazing. No cornstarch either so a ended up with a thin gravy which actually worked great with the rice I served it.
These meatballs taste amazing without the heaviness of beef – a definite keeper.
Yeah this is pretty much a perfect meatball
Can the turkey be substituted with beef?
Yes, absolutely!
Can I make this in the Crock-Pot?
What a great idea! But unfortunately, without having tried this myself, I cannot answer with certainty. But if you get a chance to try it, please let me know how it turns out! 🙂
Delicious. I added crimini mushrooms and almond meal.
Served with smashed broccoli sautéed in coconut oil over noodles. My son said his friends mom was making turkey quinoa meatballs. I went with your recipe. The baking pan is al Glad I did. The baking pan was key to keeping them moist Rarely make the same thing twice but I will make these again.
Yes you can, it will just lose some spice that way.
Can i replace with minced pork for the ground turkey?
Sure!
Thankyou
DEEEElicious! MY husband proclaimed this recipe “a keeper”. I was thrown off by the 1/2 cup water in the sauce not being in the recipe but in the directions….almost missed it!
I just made these meatballs and I have one word- WOW. Flavorful, healthy, and delicious. I can’t wait to make them again! I had to restrain myself from eating the entire batch in one go. Thank you so much for creating/sharing what has suddenly become one of my new favorite recipes.
I tried this recipe tonight. It was delicious! The meatballs were much less formed than the pictures on here, but everything tasted great! I don’t usually cook with these healthy ingredients, such as quinoa and turkey (I’m more of a soul food with all the trimmings sort of cook), but it was easy to follow and even though I made some mistakes, it was very good!
This was delicious!!! My kids loved it too! Adding this to my weekly dinners to make!
I made this tonight and it was great! I made it as listed except for the sriracha, and it was still really flavourful. Definitely a keeper. I was in a recipe rut, so for the new year I decided to try one new recipe from your site per week. So far, so good! My super picky 5 year old even told me they smelled so good while they were cooking, he was actually excited to try them! (And then loved them). Thanks for the great recipes.