Thai Meatballs

Name: Thai Style Pork Meatballs
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 1 pound lean ground pork; 1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs; 2 tablespoons fish sauce; 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro; 4 green onions (finely chopped); 2 teaspoons minced lemongrass; 1 garlic clove (minced); 1 teaspoon grated ginger; 1 tablespoon oil for frying; 2 tablespoons soy sauce; 2 tablespoons lime juice; 1 tablespoon honey; 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil; 2 green onions (thinly sliced); 1 teaspoon chopped cilantro; 1 teaspoon grated ginger; 1 garlic clove (minced); 1 small chili pepper (de-seeded and finely chopped)

December 16, 2015 Last Modified: January 10, 2022 by Regina | Leelalicious 70 Comments

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These juicy Thai-style pork meatballs are deliciously flavored with lemongrass, ginger and garlic. As an appetizer these meatballs are amazing with the intensely flavorful dipping sauce, but they also make a great main course.

About These Thai Meatballs

By now you’re probably aware of how much I love Thai food! And I know you do, too. The recipes for Spaghetti Squash with Thai Peanut Sauce and Thai Pineapple Fried Rice are among the most visited posts on this blog.

So these Thai-style pork meatballs won’t come as a surprise to you. I sure love me some classic Italian meatballs with rich tomato sauce, but the Thai version is really awesome too.

The lemongrass, ginger, garlic, cilantro and fish sauce give the pork meatballs their unmistakable Thai flavor. It’s absolutely delicious and not just for a Thai food lover, either.

My sister, Conny is currently visiting us from Canada. She just arrived yesterday after I made the meatballs. Over 24 hours of traveling can make you really hungry (especially if you don’t like airplane food).

I offered her some meatballs but I wasn’t sure how much she’d like the Thai flavors. Well, she absolutely LOVED them – not just while hungry from the trip, but also for breakfast(!) the next morning.

How to Make these Thai Meatballs

Making these meatballs is extremely easy. In a large bowl, you mix the ground pork with breadcrumbs, fish sauce, cilantro, green onion, lemongrass, fresh ginger, and garlic. Then, you shape the mixture into 25 meatballs. If you are extra concerned about making them even in size, you could weigh the whole mixture on a scale, divide it by 25, and ensure that each meatball weighs 1/25th of the total of the mixture.

Next, to cook the meatballs, you heat a large skillet over medium heat and cook the meatballs in the skillet for 15 to 20 minutes, or until cooked through. If your skillet isn’t large enough, you may have to cook them in batches.

While you are cooking the meatballs, you can mix the sauce in a small bowl. This includes soy sauce, lime juice, honey, sesame oil, green onions, cilantro, ginger, garlic, and fresh chili pepper. It is a delicious sauce that can take these meatballs over the top. It would work well with dim sum as well.

Serving these Thai Meatballs

More traditional ways to eat meatballs are either as an appetizer or paired with rice or noodles as a main course. If you’re making these Thai meatballs as appetizer, I urge you to also make the dipping sauce. It is SO good!

It’s not a thick, sticky-sweet sauce, instead, it is a truly Thai-style thin soy sauce flavored with aromatic sesame oil, ginger, cilantro, garlic and chili. Dipping the already amazing meatballs into this sauce takes them to a whole new level of delicious awesomeness!

For more Asian meatball inspiration that doesn’t use pork, try this Sesame Chicken Meatballs & Lo Mein Recipe.

Popular Pork Recipes:

4.9 from 38 votes

Thai Style Pork Meatballs

These juicy Thai-style pork meatballs are deliciously flavored with lemongrass, ginger and garlic. As an appetizer these meatballs are amazing with the intensely flavorful dipping sauce, but they also make a great main course.

Course Appetizer, Dinner, lunch, Main Course

Cuisine Thai

Keyword Thai Pork Meatballs

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Author LeelaLicious

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground pork
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
4 green onions finely chopped
2 teaspoons minced lemongrass
1 garlic clove minced
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 tablespoon oil for frying

Dipping Sauce:

2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 green onions thinly sliced
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 garlic clove minced
1 small chili pepper de-seeded and finely chopped

Instructions

Stir together all ingredients for the dipping sauce and set aside.
Combine all the ingredients for the meatballs thoroughly and roll into tablespoon sized balls with wet hands. Makes about 25.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a frying pan on medium. Cook the meatballs while stirring often until browned from all sides and cooked through. This takes about 15-20 minutes.
Serve the meatballs as appetizer with the dipping sauce, or as main course with cooked rice or pasta.