Bring two favorites together in one dish! Meatballs and stirfry are a great way to make this healthy quick dinner even more kid friendly!
I’m sure that I have mentioned this before, but I LOVE Asian food. Not only do I love how fast and fresh most Asian food can be, but I also love all of the sauces and condiments that go along with it. The Asian pantry is teeming with sauces, pastes, oils and vinegars that can be confusing to the average Southern girl wandering the aisles of the grocery store.
Well, I want to encourage you to not be afraid of the Asian aisle.
A few years ago, my husband and I were on vacation and worked up the nerve to walk into an Asian grocery store. I don’t know why I was so nervous about it, I shouldn’t have been. I guess because everything was so…foreign to me. It was the most interesting store I have ever been into.
There were rows full of soy sauce, rice vinegar, fish sauces, and chili pastes. The shelves were groaning with bags of different kinds of rice and seaweed. The refrigerators were full of vegetables and fish I had never seen before. It was exciting!
It was almost as much fun as traveling to a new country. We went up and down each aisle grabbing bottles and bags of anything we had ever seen on TV or read about in a cookbook. We came to the register with two armfuls of Asian supplies and a dumb grin on our face. As the man behind the counter rang up our selection (and helped us decipher the Chinese on a couple bottles) we braced for the damage – $21. Not too shabby for what has proved to be about a year’s worth of every Asian ingredient we ever needed (and a few we haven’t used yet).
There may not be an Asian grocery in your area but many grocery stores have their own Asian section were you can find the most popular Asian supplies.
Thanks to Budget Bytes for the inspiration!
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 lb . ground turkey
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup plain breadcrumbs
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2 inches fresh ginger grated
- ½ tsp soy sauce
- 2 whole green onions sliced
- 1 tsp . chili paste
- 1 t . black pepper
Stirfry:
- 3 ½ cups water
- 2 cups Jasmine rice
- 1 Tbsp . vegetable oil
- 2 cloves garlic smashed
- 1 bell pepper chopped
- 4 inch medium carrots peeled and sliced ¼ thick
- 2 cups chopped fresh broccoli
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
Teriyaki Glaze:
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup water
- 1 tsp . sesame oil
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 inches fresh ginger grated
- 1 T chili paste or sriracha
- 2 Tbsp corn starch
- 1 Tbsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray lightly with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine the meatball ingredients with your hands until mixed well. Roll spoonfuls of the meatball mixture into balls the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Place meatballs onto prepared baking sheet. Spray lightly with cooking spray and bake for 15-20 minutes or until meatballs register 170 degrees.
- Meanwhile, in a saucepan combine the rice and 3 cups of water over medium high heat. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
- In a wok or large skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat until almost smoking. Add the garlic and onion and cook for 30 seconds. Add in the remaining vegetables and stir to coat in oil. Saute for about 3 minutes then add the remaining ½ cup of water to the wok and cover to steam the vegetables until they are tender, about 3 minutes.
- While vegetables are steaming, whisk together the teriyaki ingredients until well combined.
- Add the meatballs to the vegetables and then stir in the teriyaki glaze, stirring constantly until sauce becomes thick and glossy. Remove from the heat. Fluff the rice with a fork and divide onto 4 plates and top with stirfry. Add more sesame seeds for garnish.
- Tip: To make this dinner even faster, prepare meatballs ahead of time and store in the fridge until ready to use. Reheat in the microwave before adding them to the veggies.
Delish!