Sticky teriyaki meatballs

Sticky teriyaki meatballs, in a delicious homemade teriyaki sauce, are an easy way to enjoy an Asian-inspired dish at home. These juicy beef meatballs are oven-baked before being smothered in a sweet, tangy glaze and are perfect to hand around as party appetisers or serve as a complete family meal.

I love meatballs so much that I've got an entire category of recipes dedicated to meatballs. They are all yummy in their own right, but I have to say that these sticky teriyaki meatballs take some beating!

Fun fact - did you know that teriyaki is a Japanese word that translates into shiny (teri) and oven-baked or grilled (yaki)?

This meal comes together in minutes and if you want an even easier meal you could buy a bottle of teriyaki sauce in the supermarket. Although I have to say my recipe for teriyaki sauce only takes 5 minutes to make, tastes amazing, and in my opinion, is time well spent.

In its simplest form, teriyaki sauce is a mixture of salty, sour and sweet so I've used soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and honey as the three main ingredients.

I've carried these flavours through into the meatball mixture to ensure you get the delicious teriyaki flavours in every mouthful!

The meatballs themselves are oven-baked for between 20 and 30 minutes depending on how large you make them. Smaller appetiser-sized meatballs will take 20 minutes, larger meal-sized ones take 30 minutes to bake.

You can serve the meatballs either on a pile of spaghetti or noodles or on a bed of white rice. I decided to go with rice this time because I wanted to serve a helping of oyster sauce steamed vegetables as a side dish. I've included instructions on how to do this below. It only takes 5 minutes to make and is the quickest stir-fry I've ever made.

I also like to garnish the meatballs with a sprinkling of chopped spring onions and sesame seeds, but this is totally up to you!

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Teriyaki sauce
• Oyster sauce steamed vegetables
• Test for flavour
• Equipment
• Storage
• Top tip
• Teriyaki meatballs FAQ
• Save for later
• Related recipes
• 📋The recipe

Ingredients

These are the ingredients you will need. This recipe makes about 12 meatballs (I got 13) but if you make them smaller (to serve as appetisers) you will get about 2 dozen.

Meatballs

• Beef mince - I used lean beef mince with a 5% fat content. You can also make these meatballs with minced pork, chicken or even turkey.
• Spring onions - you may know them as scallions or green onions. I used spring onions as they have a milder flavour than white onions and I didn't want the onion flavour to overpower the other ingredients. The spring onions should be finely chopped.
• Panko - whenever a recipe calls for breadcrumbs I grab my pack of Panko breadcrumbs. They are made from light Japanese bread and they are ultra-absorbant and provide a light texture. I use a LOT of them and buy them in bulk from Amazon because that works out at around ¼ of the price in the supermarkets. If you don't have Panko you can substitute with normal breadcrumbs.
• Egg - this is used to bind the meatballs so they don't fall apart when the meatballs are baking.
• Garlic paste and ginger paste - I use paste rather than fresh because paste combines nicely with the ingredients. You could use fresh garlic and ginger but you should mince it very finely.
• Dark soy sauce - this adds the salty element. Dark soy is less salty than light soy sauce so you could use light soy sauce instead and not add additional salt to the meatballs.
• Rice wine vinegar - this provides the sour element. You can substitute this with any mild vinegar such as apple cider. If you don't have a mild vinegar you can use dry sherry instead.
• Honey - adds the sweet element to the meatballs.
• Salt - if you are using light soy sauce you may find you don't need any additional salt. See below for instructions for testing the flavour of the meatballs before cooking them.

Teriyaki sauce

• The teriyaki sauce uses the same flavouring ingredients as are in the meatballs, ie dark soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, honey, ginger and garlic. In addition I've added sesame oil to add a slight nutty flavour.
• You will also need a slurry of cornflour and water for thickening the sauce.

***You can find the ingredient measurements on the printable recipe card at the end of this post***

Instructions

Meatballs

Teriyaki sauce

While the meatballs are in the oven you can pop your rice into the microwave (see this post for how to cook rice in the microwave) and make the sauce.

Oyster sauce steamed vegetables

I like to serve these meatballs with oyster-sauce steamed vegetables. This is how to make them.

You will need a selection of vegetables - I used broccoli, mange tout and baby corn because they all cook at roughly the same time. You could also use sliced pak choi, bean sprouts, julienned carrots, water chestnuts or bamboo shoots.

• Clean and prepare the vegetables - cut the broccoli into evenly-sized florets and cut the baby corn into short lengths. Remove any strings from the edge of the mange tout if there are any.
• Place 2 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan and stir in 2 to 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce. The amount of oyster sauce depends on how many vegetables you are cooking. Oyster sauce has a slightly salty taste so you might not need to add any salt.
• Stir in the vegetables and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat immediately to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and leave to steam for 3 to 4 minutes or until the vegetables are softened to your liking. Stir after 2 minutes to ensure the vegetables are all coated in the oyster sauce.
• By the time the vegetables are cooked the water should have evaporated and the vegetables should have absorbed the flavour of the oyster sauce.
• Serve hot as a side dish with the teriyaki meatballs.

Test for flavour

To test the flavour of the meatballs before baking them, follow these instructions.

• Once the meatball ingredients have been combined, take a teaspoon of the mixture and flatten it into a small patty shape.
• Heat a splash of sunflower oil in a pan and fry the patty on medium heat until it has browned. This should only take a minute or two.
• Taste the patty for seasoning and adjust the meatball mixture if necessary.

Equipment

To make this recipe you will need the following equipment:

• Mixing bowl for combining the meatballs
• Baking tray and optionally a silicone mat to line the tray. You could use tinfoil or baking parchment to line the baking tray too - which will make washing up afterwards much easier.
• Small saucepan - for making the sauce.

Storage

These meatballs freeze well. I often make a double batch of the meatballs and pop them in the freezer either before or after cooking, but before they have been mixed with the teriyaki sauce.

When I'm ready to make the dish I take the raw meatballs and cook them from frozen. Otherwise, if I've frozen the cooked meatballs I simply defrost them. Then it's just a matter of making the teriyaki sauce to mix them with.

Leftover meatballs in the sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. You can warm them in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove. Cold meatballs also make delicious sandwiches.

Teriyaki meatballs FAQ

Save for later

If you would like to make these sticky teriyaki meatballs why not sav the recipe to one of your Pinterest boards so you can find it easily? Just click the image below.

Alternatively, you can save the recipe by clicking on the floating heart icon on the right-hand side of the screen.

Related recipes

Here are some of my other meatball recipes that you might enjoy:

📋The recipe

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