Teriyaki Chicken Meatballs

nibbleboard.com/recipes/teriyaki-chicken-meatballs

Ingredients

Instructions

1. Make the sauce base: whisk cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of the water in a small bowl until smooth. Add soy sauce, sake, mirin, and sugar, then stir in the remaining water. Set aside.
2. Combine ground chicken, egg, panko, garlic, 1 1/2 teaspoons sake, salt, and 2 teaspoons of the teriyaki sauce in a large bowl.
3. Mix with your hands until just combined. Scoop heaped tablespoons and roll into balls — you should get about 20 meatballs.
4. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add all the meatballs and cook, rolling occasionally to brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. They'll still be slightly raw inside.
5. Turn heat down to medium-low. Give the sauce a quick stir and pour it into the skillet around the meatballs.
6. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 2-3 minutes, spooning sauce over the meatballs, until the sauce thickens into a glossy glaze that coats each meatball.
7. Serve immediately over steamed rice, spooning extra sauce from the pan on top. Garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds.

Nutrition per Serving

Chef Tips

• If the meatball mixture feels too sticky to roll, wet your hands with cold water between every few meatballs — it makes shaping so much easier.
• Don't skip the cornstarch slurry step. Mixing it with water first prevents lumps in the sauce and gives you that glossy, coat-the-back-of-a-spoon consistency.
• I've found that using a small cookie scoop (about 1.5 tablespoon size) gives you perfectly even meatballs that cook at the same rate.
• No sake or mirin? Use dry sherry for the sake and add an extra teaspoon of sugar plus a splash of rice vinegar for the mirin. Not identical, but still delicious.
• These reheat beautifully — store sauce and meatballs together so they soak up even more flavor overnight.

Storage

Store meatballs and sauce together in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.