Orange Chicken Meatballs
Oookkkay, so theseeeee are tasty! Allison and I have been trying to eat a tiny bit lighter, so this Orange Chicken Meatballs recipe is one of the recipes we have been enjoying lately.
We eat it with a side of broccoli and some cauliflower rice mixed into either regular white rice or brown rice. It’s hard sometimes being a food blogger. I want to bake goodies like biscuits stuffed with delicious things for my Blog, but my day to day diet isn’t like that. We normally eat a protein, veggie, and either rice or potato for our meals. We also love eating biscuits, and prior to having a baby, fitting in time to cook was so easy. I always had time to make some “blog worthy” food during the week or on a weekend. Nowadays, I have to cram in all my cooking on Saturday or Sunday, do all of the photography, and film videos, and sometimes it will be three meals of biscuits! We have a tiny freezer, and we fill it with as much as possible, but sometimes there is overflow. So, then it’s stuffed biscuits 5 days in a row. I guess my point here is that I love when I can create a lighter meal that I also find blog worthy so then I am not eating biscuits 5 days in a row! This Orange Chicken Meatball recipe is one of those recipes. These almost didn’t make them into the photo because we kept eating them right out of the pan! 🤣
Cooking Equipment:
- Mixing Bowl
- Large Baking Sheet
- Large Sauté Pan
Orange Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 lb Ground Chicken
- 1/2 TBSP Sesame Oil
- 1/2 tsp Ginger Paste
- 2 TBSP Tamari (Reduced Sodium) you can use low-sodium soy sauce if you aren't gluten-free, or you can use coconut aminos if you are paleo
- 2 Green Onions, chopped just the light green portion. Save the bright green part for later
- 1 TBSP Garlic Paste This is equal to about 3 or 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk Any milk is ok
- 1 Egg
- 1/2 Cup Gluten-Free Panko Bread Crumbs You can use almond meal, or omit this step if paleo
- 1/4 tsp *Salt* Optional Only use this if you have chosen to use Coconut Aminos instead of Tamari or Soy Sauce
Sauce
- 1/2 Cup Orange Juice No need to buy expensive Orange Juice for this. It can even be from concentrate. Just make sure there is no additional sugar in the ingredients.
- 1/4 Cup Tamari (reduced sodium) substitute Low Sodium Soy Sauce or Coconut Aminos. If you use coconut aminos, add a pinch of salt to the sauce
- 1 TBSP Garlic Paste
- Zest of one Mandarin or small orange
- 1/2 TBSP Orange Preserves optional
- 1/2 TBSP Maple Syrip Can be subsituted with Honey
- 1/3 Cup Rice Vinegar Apple Cider Vinegar can be used
- 1/2 tsp Sriracha
- 1/4 tsp Ginger Paste
- 3/4 tsp Cassava Flour tapioca flour, arrowroot flour, or cornstarch can be used
Instructions
- Preheat the over to 400F
- In a large mixing bowl combine the first set of ingredients for the meatballs.
- Take out a large baking sheet and line it with parchment paper.
- Roll your meatball mixture into balls, making sure you wet your hands in between every few so that the mixture does not stick to your hands. Place the meatballs on the baking sheet, with a little space in between them.
- Bake for 20 minutes
- When there is 5 minutes left of baking time, add the ingredients for the sauce (except for the flour/cornstarch) into a large sauce pan.
- Cook the sauce on medium heat, stirring frequently.
- Add the 3/4 tsp of flour and raise the heat to high. Stir frequently.
- Once it boils, you will see the mixture start to thicken. (This will take less than a minute). Once the mixture is thick, set the heat to low or turn off the heat and wait for the meatballs to be cooked.
- Once the meatballs are done cooking, add the meatballs into the large sauce pan and roll them around in the mixture. Your heat can be set to low at this point.
- Serve with Steamed Broccoil and Rice!
Loved these orange chicken meatballs. Made them as a weekly meal prep and they held up/heated up really well. Easy to double and make ahead.
Thank you and thanks for sharing the tip about making a double batch!
Hi – I didn’t have garlic or ginger paste so I just used regular garlic and ginger. The meatballs were runny so I couldn’t form them into meatballs. I just plopped them on the cookie sheet. Is that due to not using the paste? Also I didn’t add the salt but I did find this to be too salty for my taste.
Hi Nancy,
I am not sure what went wrong. The only ingredient in the meatballs that has salt is the “reduced sodium” soy sauce. Did you by chance not use “reduced sodium”? Did you use bread-crumbs and were they pre-seasoned?
I did use the reduced sodium tamari and the gf panko crumbs (not pre-seasoned).
The reduced sodium tamari is the only ingredient with salt and the recipe doesn’t use very much so I am not sure why it tasted overly salty. Unfortunately, I can’t troubleshoot the flavor unless I am there with you to see you make it step by step. Also, anytime you make meatballs in the future, you can always try adding extra breadcrumbs to make them firmer. This works for any brand of breadcrumbs.