SRC: Asian Turkey Meatballs with Peanut Sauce and Fresh Veg

My partner for this month's Secret Recipe Club is Lisa of Sweet as Sugar Cookies.  Her blog is full of delicious-looking recipes, so it was hard to choose what I wanted to make! I noticed that Lisa has posted a few different meatball recipes, and since meatballs are one of my all-time favorites, I decided to give one of them a try.  I ended up selecting Lisa's spicy peanut butter meatballs, but her oyster sauce meatballs and barbecue meatballs also looked amazing!

These turkey meatballs are full of flavor from cilantro, onions, garlic powder, and chili flakes.  After a quick bake in the oven, they're tossed in an awesome spicy peanut sauce.  You can add more or less Sriracha to make these as spicy (or not) as you like...I used about 1 teaspoon for a medium-spicy level of heat.  The sauce is sweet, rich, and so delicious!  Because of the rich sauce, I decided to leave my veggies raw and toss them with a little rice vinegar.  The combination of peanut sauce with quick pickled veggies is one of my favorite aspects of chicken satay, and duplicating that effect here worked really well.  Definitely a winning recipe -- thank you Lisa!

Asian Turkey Meatballs with Peanut Sauce and Fresh Veg (adapted from Rachel Ray via Sweet as Sugar Cookies)

Serves 3-4

For the meatballs:

20 ounces ground turkey

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

1/4 cup panko

1/4 cup minced onion (or 1 heaping T Penzey's toasted onions rehydrated to make 1/4 cup)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp sea salt

Generous pinch chili flakes

For the peanut sauce:

1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

2 T soy sauce

3 T sugar

1 T sesame oil

2 T vegetable oil

1 tsp Sriracha

For the veggies:

1 small cucumber, thinly sliced

1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced

2 carrots, peeled and grated

Rice vinegar

Salt

Steamed white rice, to serve

1. First, get your rice going so that it will be ready when the meatballs are done!

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil. Spray with oil.

3. In a medium bowl, mix together the turkey, cilantro, panko, onion, garlic powder, salt, and chili flakes.  Mix gently with your hands to combine.

4. Roll the turkey mixture into tablespoon-sized balls and arrange on the prepared baking sheet.  If you have a cookie scoop, this will speed things up (scoop all the meatballs, then roll).

5. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until no longer pink in the center (cut one in half to check).

6. Meanwhile, whisk together all the peanut sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Taste and adjust to taste.

7. Toss the veggies in a separate bowl with a generous drizzle of rice vinegar and a pinch of salt.  Taste and adjust seasoning -- you want the vegetables to taste fairly acidic to balance the rich sauce.

8. When the meatballs are cooked, transfer to a skillet and add the peanut sauce.  Heat over medium heat, stirring often, just until the sauce is heated through.

9. To serve, add a scoop of rice to the bottom of each bowl.  Top with the fresh veggies, and spoon the meatballs on top.

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