Nothing beats the sweet and sour kick of these Japanese meatballs on a cold winter day!
The best part? You barely need any exotic spices: ginger is optional, and you can replace the rice vinegar with half as much white vinegar.
You can even swap the potato starch for cornstarch, so the recipe is within everyone’s reach – no excuse not to send me photos of your Japanese meatballs!
If you enjoy sweet and sour dishes, you’ll also love my crispy beef
My adventure with Japanese meatballs began in a very practical way. I always plan way too much for everything, and this time it was dim sum.
As you know, dim sum uses a lot of ground pork, and my love for them only amplified my tendency to over-plan.
So I ended up with about 600g of extra ground pork and zero motivation to mix more dough and fold dumplings for an hour.
Naturally, I went looking for a quick, simple, and tasty recipe so nothing would end up in the bin (plus, in Belgium it is hard to find pure pork mince, so wasting it would be a crime. Belgians, one day you’ll have to explain your fascination with pork/veal mince).
That search led me to Japanese meatballs, and with all the mince I had, I could run several tests and perfect the recipe. I am thrilled with the result – sometimes I like a dish but know it will not become a classic, yet this one might… I cannot wait to hear your thoughts!
Serve them with rice or, for example, stir-fried noodles in soy sauce
Ingredients for Japanese Pork Meatballs
Potato starch: Just like in chicken karaage, this starch gives the meatballs a unique flavor and texture. You can replace it with cornstarch, but the result will be slightly different
Dark soy sauce: Do not confuse it with light soy sauce. Because this is essentially a Japanese recipe, you can also use tamari sauce; it is easier to find in supermarkets and tastes great.
Rice vinegar: Ideally use white rice vinegar, but white wine vinegar works in a pinch
Japanese-style Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 0.5 medium onion
- 1 tsp ginger grated
- 400 g pork ground
- 0.5 cup breadcrumbs preferably panko
- 1 egg
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 stalk green onion chopped
- 1 pinch salt and pepper
- vegetable oil for frying
Japanese Sweet and Sour Sauce
- 4 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 4 tbsp rice vinegar
- 4 tbsp water
- 1.5 tbsp potato starch
Instructions
Meatballs
- Heat the oil and mix all the meatball ingredients in a bowl, kneading well with your hands.
- Shape the meatballs
- Fry for about 4-5 minutes and set aside
Sauce
- Combine all the ingredients and cook over low heat.
- Stir constantly until it thickens.
- Once it reaches the desired thickness, add the meatballs and mix well.
Served these Japanese meatballs with rice at a cozy dinner with friends, and the sweet and sour sauce disappeared in minutes. Everyone kept complimenting how tender they were and asked me to send them the recipe before they left 🙂
Made these Japanese meatballs last night and they were a total hit, so I intentionally doubled the batch; the leftovers were just as good (maybe even better) the next day with rice 😊
Made these on a hectic weeknight when I was exhausted and they came together so fast with pantry ingredients; the sweet and sour sauce thickened up perfectly and tasted amazing over rice 😊
Made these Japanese meatballs for a cozy family birthday dinner last weekend and they disappeared faster than the cake. The sweet and sour sauce was a total hit, and even the picky eaters went back for seconds 🙂