I love Thai Chicken Meatballs with Peanut Sauce. The meatballs are lightly spiced, juicy and melt in your mouth, and the peanut sauce is so deliciously moreish you’ll want to lick your plate. A sweet, spicy, tangy, flavour fusion. This is a perfect midweek dinner for two with leftovers for lunch. It feels like takeout, but healthier.
How To Make
- Get the Rice On. I use a rice cooker to set and forget and I think this is the easiest way to cook rice!
- Make you meatballs . There are only 6 ingredients I use to make moist tasty meatballs with a thai twist. Chicken, minced garlic, grated ginger, a little soy, a little chilli and garlic salt.
- Cook the meatballs. Cooking them take 5 to 7 minutes and once they are done you can pop them in te oven on a very low temp to keep warm, or just cover them with a lid whilst you make the sauce
- Make the Peanut Sauce. This sauce comes together in about 5 minutes. Its so tasty and you can use it on so many things.
- Assemble: Rice + Meatballs + Pour the sauce over. Then garnish to shallots or spring onions.
These chicken meatballs are a cinch to whip up after a busy day at work (which I often do), and whilst they are sizzling away in the pan practically cooking themselves, it’s simple and easy to throw all the peanut sauce ingredients into another saucepan.
What's In Peanut Satay Sauce?
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- ½ teaspoon Ginger, finely grated
- ½ tablespoon mild chilli paste
- 2 tablespoons sugar free crunchy peanut butter
- ¾ cup light coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon Raw honey
- 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- 1 tablespoon Penang Curry Paste
This makes about 1 cup of peanut curry sauce, maybe a bit more. Enough to generously coat the meatballs and have some leftover for the rice as well.
Other clean eating chicken dinners to tempt your tastebuds:
- 20 minute Pineapple Chicken Curry (comfort food you can eat all year round)
- Healthy Mango Chicken Bake (a dish that even the fussiest of eaters will love)
- Authentic Clean Eating Butter Chicken (From scratch and super easy to make)
- Easy Pulled Chicken Burrito Bowls for Busy Weeknights (healthy mexican in 20 minutes)
Thai Chicken Meatballs with Peanut Sauce Is A Must Make Weeknight Dish
Your house will definitely be filled with the enticing scent of a welcoming dinner when you make this. In the event you have an open window in your kitchen where dinner smells can waft over into your neighbours house, you may even have the neighbours asking you “What’s for Dinner?”
And it’s on the table in under 30 minutes as well. Actually you could probably even do it quicker than that, especially if you have a helper (hubby/housemate/sibling/child/significant other) to help you do the meatballs.
How To Cook Thai Chicken Meatballs
- Use a little oil to avoid them sticking (I love to use coconut oil)
- Cook on medium to high heat
- Once they are a little bit cooked, res them up against each other to try and get them evenly cooked
- Give the pan a gentle shake once or twice to move the meatballs around to get even colour and to avoid sticking
This dish is perfect if you love peanut butter and love curry.
Want more simple to make sauciness, check these out:
What to Serve With Chicken in Peanut Sauce:
- Rice: Jasmine, or brown rice
- Noodles: Egg noodles, Soba noodles, or even Udon noodles. Whatever you have on hand.
- Greens: broccoli, zucchini noodles, green beans, or steamed bok choi.
Other Ways To Use This Sauce
- Instead of chicken meatballs, why not try home-made beef or pork, or even turkey meatballs. Whilst I prefer to make my own meatballs, you could make this sauce to go with frozen storebought meatballs if you're really pressed for time, or don't like making meatballs.
- Cook up your favourite noodles add a few veges and this peanut sauce.
- Drizzled over chicken breast, turkey breast or a piece of steak.
- Chicken kebabs with peanut sauce, baked salmon with peanut sauce.
- Even use it as a dipping sauce with sweet potato chips baked in the oven until crispy.
Once you know how to make this peanut sauce you’ll probably find it sneaking into your cooking repertoire quite often.
Whilst this recipe calls for Penang curry paste to really bring out that punch thai flavour, if you don't have this, you can use Red Thai Curry paste. It will work just as well, however it may make it a little spicer so use less if you like a milder sauce.
A tip for these Thai Chicken Meatballs
You can totally make these meatballs ahead, lightly precook them, let them cool and freeze them.
More Saucy Chicken Recipes:
Thai Chicken Meatballs with Peanut Sauce
Ingredients
Chicken
- 400 grams/14 oz. Chicken Mince
- 1 teaspoon Crushed garlic
- 1 teaspoon Chilli Paste or Sambal Olek - (see note 1)
- 1 teaspoon Minced ginger paste
- 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
- 1 teaspoon Onion salt
- 1 cup Jasmine rice
- 12 Green beans
- Optional: Dried shallots and fresh spring onions to garnish
Satay Curry Sauce
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- ½ teaspoon Ginger, finely grated
- ½ tablespoon Chilli Paste or Sambal Olek
- 2 tablespoons sugar free crunchy peanut butter - (Note 1)
- ¾ cup light coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon Raw honey or granulated sweetener that measures like sugar
- 1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- 1 tablespoons Penang Curry Paste
Instructions
- Get the rice on, and cook according to packet instructions. (I use a rice cooker)
- Boil a saucepan of water ready for the beans.
- Making the meatballs: In a bowl, add the chicken mince, ginger, garlic, chilli, soy sauce and onion salt. Divide into 12 pieces and roll into meatballs.
- Heat a large non stick frypan on medium heat and add the meatballs. After they have lightly browned, put a lid on to keep the heat in. They should take about 10 to 12 minutes to cook.
- Making the Satay Curry Sauce: in a medium saucepan, add the garlic, chilli paste and ginger. Stir for a minute until fragrant.
- Add the coconut milk and stir in for 1 minute
- Add the peanut putter and stir in until it melts.
- Add the curry paste, honey or granulated stevia (depending on which you;re using), light soy, pinch of salt and lime juice. Stir for a minute to mix it all in and then remove from heat
- Cooking the beans: While the meatballs and curry sauce is cooking, add the beans to the saucepan of boiling water. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes and remove from the heat
- Putting it together: add the rice, meatballs, and pour over the curry sauce. Add the beans, slice of lime, dried shallots and fresh spring onions.
Notes
- Chilli Paste: I used the masterfoods fresh chilli paste in this recipe. You could also substitute for Sambel Olek - an asian chilli paste (found in the Asian food aisle of supermarkets). Alternatively you can easily make a chilli paste with long red chilies, pounded in a mortar and pestle until a paste is formed.
- Peanut Butter: There are many sugar free peanut butters on the shelves of supermarkets these days. Look for one that says "sugar free" on the label, or "natural". Either way, read the back of the ingredient label and if the only ingredient is peanuts its a winner.
- Honey/Granulated sweetener: I love using a little bit of honey to sweeten this sauce, however you can also use a granulated sweetener that measures like sugar (for example granulated stevia, or monkfruit). Using a granulated sweetener will slightly lower the calories overall, and still give a great taste without compromising on flavour.
Nutrition
Note: Sugars contained in this recipe are from naturally occurring sugars in fruits, vegetables or other natural sweeteners.
Holy cow, yum!!! Was a little leary of using ground chicken, but this entire recipe was delightful! SUCH good flavors all around. We will be making this again!!
Lovely! The chicken balls were a little dry. I will try pork mince next time. I substituted the chilli with tomato sauce... sadly the kids can't take too much heat. I also used light coconut cream rather than milk, becsuse I like a thick sauce. I added crushed penuts to the garnish. I will certainly be cooking this one again!
Too peanuty for me but I am sure lots of people would love it.
Hi! Step #8 in the instructions says to use granulated stevia instead of the honey that is mentioned in the ingredients list. Can you confirm which one we should use? Thanks!
Hi there, in this recipe you can use either raw honey or a granulated sweetener that measures like sugar. Both will work just fine, however my preference is to use honey as it adds a little extra richness to the sauce. I've updated the recipe with this info! Cheers.
Made it for dinner tonight and it was a hit. We like a lot of spice so I will add more next time. I used ground turkey because that is what I had and it was a good substitute.
Can ground chicken be substituted for chicken mince?
Yep, sure can.
Perfect flavors - my family loved it too! I sautéed the vegetables with ginger garlic paste and a little soya sauce and they went well with the thai gravy.
This recipe was ridiculously delicious! It literally tasted like take out Thai! I used Thai red curry sauce instead of Panang because I couldnt find it in the store and it definitely turned out spicy, but I love spicy Thai food so it was amazing! I served it over sauteed green beans which I cooked in the same pan as the meatballs with a little coconut oil and romaine lettuce instead of putting it over rice to avoid the carbs. It was so amazing and my kids and husband loved it as well! It is definitely going in the rotation!!
This was sooooo good! I accidentally used 500g chicken mince instead of 400g, added fresh parsley and coriander into mince mixture. Used paprika instead of chilli paste, and red curry paste instead of Penang curry paste. Will definitely do this recipe again ❤️🍴
This sounds delicious! Quick question, is the coconut milk, sweetened or no?
I used unsweetened coconut milk.
Great recipe. Really easy and extremely tasty. Will be adding it to my favourites.
Made this tonight. Soooo good! It took me more like 25-30 mins to prep. But that’s still very doable on a busy weeknight, and wasn’t complicated. Loved it and will make it again for sure. Thanks for a great recipe!
The whole family loved it! I used almond butter instead of peanut butter because a couple of my kids have peanut allergies. Deliciously different than the standard chicken breasts we usually have.
Peanut sauce is my weakness. I made this on the weekend and loved it! was Yum. Got the sugar free peanut butter from woollies and all.
Do you think this would be too spicy for kids??? Because it looks and sounds amazing! And I really want to make it haha
Even though this recipe has chilli in it, it isn't overly spicy as its only a small amount and I used a very mild chilli. Depending on how old your kids are you could either leave the chilli out, or if you include it do make sure you buy a mild chilli paste.