The whole family will love these soft and tender sweet and sour meatballs for their taste and texture in a wonderfully balanced sauce. {Gluten-Free adaptable}
Sweet and sour meatballs are a favorite with everyone, young and old. It’s probably because that balance of sweet, sour, and savory elements all come together for a sauce you can’t resist. Plus, the meatballs come out with this very soft and tender texture that is a brilliant contrast to the bounty of crunchy colorful vegetables within.
It’s a dish that looks bright and cheerful on your table. And while many sweet and sour meatball recipes use tons of sugar, you can feel good about this one. I’ve found a way to limit the sugar so you get a sauce that is still sweet and delicious without making you guilty.
Sweet and sour meatball ingredients
One thing you’ll love if you’re a parent is that I’ve hidden plenty of veggies in these meatballs. Along with the breadcrumbs, they render the texture so soft and fluffy. And with that sauce, your kids won’t notice that they’re getting more veggies in every mouthful.
When you’re done prepping, your table should have the ingredients below before you start cooking.
If you’d like your sweet and sour meatballs to be slightly spicier, I recommend blending either sriracha or chili garlic sauce into the ketchup. If you have kids, you can keep some of the sauce less spicy for their portions so that everyone is happy.
Cooking process
In my steps below, I’ll show you how to make these super-easy meatballs. You’ll never buy the store-bought ones again!
- Brown the meatballs
- Remove the meatballs from the pan
- Cook the onion and pepper
- Add back the meatballs
- Pour in the sauce
- Cook until the sauce thickens
They taste so good and once you make them once, you’ll want to make them for every meatball occasion.
I love making sweet and sour meatballs on a busy weeknight. The ingredient list might look long but it’s quite easy to put together. Make enough of them so that you have leftovers and you will have a wonderful lunch to enjoy the next day, as well.
More delicious easy chicken recipes
- Crispy Baked Chicken Leg
- Three Cup Chicken (三杯鸡)
- Thai Basil Chicken (Pad Krapow Gai)
- One-Pan Chinese Chicken and Rice
- Chicken Chop Suey
Easy Sweet and Sour Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb (450 g) ground chicken
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- 1/4 yellow onion , minced
- 1/2 carrot , minced
- 2 garlic , minced
- 1 egg
- 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (or regular breadcrumbs)
Fry:
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1/4 yellow onion , chopped
- 1 red or yellow pepper , chopped (I used half red and half yellow pepper but you can use either)
Sauce:
- 3 tablespoons ketchup sriracha, and/or chili garlic sauce (homemade or store-bought) (*Footnote 1)
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (or dry sherry)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 4 tablespoons water
- 1 clove garlic , grated
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
- Combine the sauce ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Stir to mix well and set aside.
- Add the chicken, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, onion, carrot, and garlic into a large bowl. Beat everything together with a spatula until it becomes sticky, about 5 minutes. Add the egg and breadcrumbs and stir to incorporate.
- Coat your hands with a light layer of oil (it helps you to form the meatballs without sticking too much to your hands). Add one heaping tablespoon of the mixture into your palm and shape it into a round ball. Place it onto a large flat plate or tray. Repeat to shape the rest of the meatballs.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat until hot. Add the meatballs into the pan without overcrowding them. Let the meatballs brown for 1 to 2 minute, then flip and brown the other side for another 1 to 2 minutes. Once both sides are browned, flip the meatballs on their sides and brown for another 4 to 5 minutes. Roll them occasionally to brown all sides evenly. Once done, remove the meatballs onto a large plate and set aside.
- Turn the heat up to medium-high. Add the onion and pepper. Stir fry until the onion turns slightly pale golden on the edges, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Stir the sauce again to thoroughly dissolve the cornstarch and pour it into the pan. Stirring constantly to bring the sauce to a boil and cook until it is thickened. Turn off the heat and transfer everything to a large serving plate.
- Serve the meatballs with the sauce over steamed rice and enjoy as a main dish.
Notes
- Depending on your personal preference, you can use ketchup, hot sauce, or a combination of both. Personally I like to use 2 tablespoons ketchup and 1 tablespoon sriracha. It gives the sauce more character and it doesn’t taste very spicy.
Video
Nutrition
Lilja Walter is a part of the Omnivore’s Cookbook team and worked closely with Maggie to develop and test this recipe.
Looks super delicious!
Loved it and super simple!!! Just one quick question, I make the mistake a lot I think, why does my sauce get so sticky and thick? It still tastes great but I want more sauce for tomorrow… really enjoyed the recipe!!! First time making meatballs of any cuisine too!!! Thank you
Hi Andrew, I just realized that I had a typo and it should be “2 teaspoons cornstarch” instead of 2 tablespoons. So sorry for this!
I’m glad you still liked the dish. I hope you will cook this again and get a better result the next time.
very nice, thank you, love sweet and sour anything, meatballs too, and like that it’s easy!
In your regards to this recipe: “Easy Sweet and Sour Meatballs”. I received this recipe in an email a couple of days ago. My wife and I both thought it looked good, like a recipe we would like to try. We saw in the recipe in the recipe heading “FRY”, it called for a bell pepper. (Bell Pepper to us is a green pepper). We also noticed in the recipe picture, there were red and yellow peppers, and apparently there was no green bell pepper used. Which brings me to the question; “Are we supposed to use red and yellow peppers or a green bell pepper”? Under the heading: ‘HOW TO MAKE SWEET AND SOUR MEATBALLS’ picture #3 and #4 both show red and yellow peppers with the onion and or meatballs. We would like clarification on this, as you know…there is a different taste to be considered between the different peppers. Thank you for your clarification when it is available…and thank you for your time>
Hi David, sorry for the confusion! Yes I did use a mix of red and yellow peppers (half each) so I put 1 pepper in the recipe. I’m going to update the recipe now for clarity. Re your question, I do think red and/or yellow peppers will work better because they are sweeter and work very well with the sauce. That being said, it’s OK to use green as well.
EASY SWEET AND SOUR MEATBALLS (RECIPE): A: in the “Ingredients” it calls for 1/2 carrot (minced) … “STEP 2 “: Add the chicken, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, onion, CARROT, and garlic into a large bowl. B: “Fry” does not call for CARROT … “STEP 5” Turn the heat up to medium-high. Add the onion, CARROT, and pepper.
So…my question is: IS THE 1/2 CARROT TO BE DIVIDED UP ONTO 2 – 1/4 CARROT PIECES, OR IS THERE A CARROT AMOUNT NOT LISTED IN “FRY”? We made this recipe using the 1/2 carrot 9(minced) in the meatballs and only yellow onion and peppers called for in the “FRY” part of the recipe. Can you clarify this for me?
Hi David, sorry for the confusion! I added some carrots to the frying process when testing the recipe, but decided to skip it for the final version to make the recipe shorter. But I forgot to edit the instructions. Just updated the recipe and now it’s correct.
PS. your approach was right – adding the minced carrot to the meatballs and only use onion and peppers in the sauce.
Oh, I added cubed carrots with other veggies. it tastes super
Would ground beef work in this recipe?
Yes it will work!
I made this for one of my six other dishes for CNY. It was the favorite hands-down. My family loved how tender the meatballs were and the sauce was described as being exceptional. The meatballs were made ahead of time and frozen and I doubled the recipe for the sauce.
Better than great! These were sublime. Already love your sweet and sour pork but actually love the texture mix and flavours. Brilliant and didn’t take long to prepare: another bonus
Another amazing dish Maggie. Better than restaurant quality. I used 2 tbsp ketchup and one tbsp chili garlic sauce. We cannot wait to make this again soon!
Oh wow! This recipe turned out amazing! I stumbled upon your blog a while back and have been religiously following it for all my weekend binges! I tried these this past weekend and it was delicious! I have never made meatballs in my life but these were so easy but also felt super healthy at the same time. Highly recommend this recipe.
Fantastic recipe. Total do-again 🙂 This was fantastic. It was super fast to make. I used Spicy banana ketchup and that gave it a nice kick.
This was so good, but it’s missing one important ingredient…pineapple. Every sweet and sour dish I’ve had growing up had pineapple in it. Happen to have some fresh-cut on hand and added it in just as the peppers and onions were done (just to warm it up). The husband agreed that it was great! We’ll definitely be making this again. I didn’t have siracha on hand and used sambal oelek instead.
It was so easy to make and so good!
The whole family loved it 🥰 thank you
This is a great recipe. We tried it and it came out very well. We followed your instructions to a T but we added birdseye peppers because we like most things spicier than our friends. Everyone loved this! We have made several of your recipes: all were super yummy! (we also follow you on Instagram.) Thank you for posting
I made this recipe tonight, pretty much as written. Very nice. Good combination of ingredients and good techniques. Thank you Maggie.
I used ground beef instead green pepper instead (because that’s what I had). I omitted the wine because I didn’t have any. I added ground ginger to the meatballs. Also, I grated the onion, garlic and carrot in my meatballs. Turned out phenomenal!