Sesame Soy Meatballs can be served as a flavorful appetizer or with steamed veggies and rice for a delicious, family-friendly meal.
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Mini meatball appetizer recipe
Sesame Soy Meatballs are always quick to disappear when served as a mini meatball appetizer at parties. Guests love them because they’re lightly sweet, salty and full of umami rich soy sauce flavor. And hosts love them because they can be made ahead of time with just a little effort.
Recipe developed in partnership with P.F. Chang‘s and PF Chang’s Home Menu® (registered trademarks owned by PF Chang’s China Bistro, Inc. and used with permission).
With a homemade sesame soy sauce is used in three ways to easily give the meatballs amazing flavor.
Simply whisk up the homemade sesame soy dressing and it it three ways to give the meatballs amazing flavor! As a seasoning for the ground beef meatball mixture, as a glaze for the meatballs while they’re cooking and also as a serving sauce for the meatballs!
Using one initial mixture in multiple ways is a great trick to reduce the workload without sacrificing flavor. I also use this method in my Blueberry Quinoa Salad and Sesame Chicken Salad recipes.
Ingredients
- Soy sauce – NEW P.F. Chang’s® Home Menu Soy Sauce is lower sodium than regular soy giving you complete control of the salt level in your homemade sesame soy sauce. Find NEW P.F. Chang’s® Home Menu Soy Sauce with all the other delicious P.F. Chang’s® Home Menu Sauces in the Asian food aisle of your local grocer.
- Ground beef – good quality sirloin. Either 80/20 or 70/30 mix.
- Sesame oil
- Chili garlic sauce – sambal olek or other similar chili sauce
- Brown sugar
- Egg
- Chopped garlic
- Panko bread crumbs
- Scallions
- Sesame seeds
Step by step instructions
- Prepare sesame soy sauce dressing. Divide dressing in two, reserving half for later to use as a glaze and a dipping sauce.
- Use the other half of the flavorful homemade dressing to season the meatballs. Mix into ground beef. Then stir in panko bread crumbs, egg and scallions.
- Form seasoned ground beef mixture into about fifty 1″ or twenty 2″ meatballs with a metal scoop or wet hands.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place meatballs on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake meatballs in oven 25-30 minutes, glazing with roughly 2 tablespoons sauce halfway through.
- Once cooked through garnish with sesame seeds and sliced scallions and serve with reserved sesame soy dressing.
- Enjoy!
How to serve
There are many different cocktail meatball sauces like grape jelly cocktail meatballs, italian cocktail meatballs and sweet and sour cocktail meatballs with grape jelly and chili sauce. These meatballs recipes are typically served as an appetizer by placing meatballs in crockpot and covering with sauce to keep warm.
These asian style sesame soy meatballs can be served like any other classic crockpot meatballs recipe. Made ahead of time and served covered with sauce in the in a slow cooker.
Or you can serve meatballs as an appetizer lined up individually on a plate with separate serving forks and dipping sauce on the side.
Or turn cocktail meatballs as a meal instead! With rice, vegetable and salad on the side.
How to make ahead of time
To make Sesame Soy Cocktail Meatballs ahead of time form meatballs and tightly cover then refrigerate before cooking for up to 5 days. Bake meatballs in the oven and serve as directed.
Or freeze meatballs in a single layer on a baking sheet then transfer to freezer bags or vacuum bags and freeze for up to 3 months. Bake as directed from frozen, adding several minutes to the baking time.
Alternately freeze meatballs after baking as directed. And reheat in the microwave or slow cooker before serving.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
sesame soy sauce
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon chili garlic paste sambal olek
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 8 cloves garlic grated
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger grated, or ¼ teaspoon dried
sesame soy meatballs
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs
- 3 medium scallions 1 sliced, 2 minced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine sugar, soy, sesame oil, chili paste, garlic, ginger and salt. set aside.
- Add ¼ cup sesame soy sauce to ground beef in large bowl, reserve remaining.
- Mix egg, panko, and scallions to the seasoned beef. Using a small scooop or moist hands shape into roughly 50 1″ meatballs for appetizers or 20 1 ½″ meatballs for a meal.
- Place on prepared baking sheet and bake.
- Meanwhile, stir sesame seeds into reserved sesame-soy sauce, then remove 2 tablespoons for glazing and keep the rest as a dipping sauce.
- After 15 minutes in the oven, baste the meatballs with sesame-soy glaze and bake an additional 5-10 minutes or until cooked through.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds and sliced scallion and serve with dipping sauce.
Notes
Nutrition
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