Thai Chicken Meatballs in Curry Sauce
Today was a doozie that the studio. After filming several client food videos and photographing the recipes the last thing we wanted to eat was what we captured on-set. It’s typical for us to not crave anything that we photographed or filmed that day.
We needed dinner quick and the thought of going out to eat crossed our minds. But we didn’t want to go out to eat when we had a fridge full of ingredients and didn’t want to be burdened by a fussy dinner that took more than 30 minutes. Yup we were that picky about not wanting to eat out and not wanting to wait for dinner. Have you ever felt like that? Hungry and a little impatient? Lol, thus the life of post-photo dinner problems!
Video: Yummy Thai Curry Chicken Meatballs
We were craving curry because that was quick to throw together and we had a really good go-to curry recipes. But our chicken thighs were still frozen (drama!) and we were too hungry to think about thawing. What we found was a bit of ground chicken and did the math: ground chicken + curry craving= chicken meatballs in curry. Thai style!
Voila! No more hunger pains and within 30 minutes with both of us prepping we had a fabulous pot of Thai curry chicken meatballs to heal our hunger. The tender meatballs and awesome curry sauce washed away all the exhaustion from the days production shoot. Now we’ve finalized the recipe for you here and hope you enjoy it as much as we did. That’s the end of the story of a day in the life of hungry photographers.
Enjoy,
diane and todd
More–> Easy Curry Recipes Here
- Coconut Curry Chicken Thighs Recipe
- Roasted curry turmeric cauliflower with pistachios and coconut
- Spaghetti Squash with Curry Sauce
- All our quick curry recipes here
Thai Curry Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
For the Meatballs
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger)
- 2 stalks green onions (minced)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt ,
- lots of fresh cracked black pepper , to taste
- 2 Tablespoons oil
For the Curry:
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 bay leaf (or kaffir lime leaf)
- 1 Tablespoon curry powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper , or to taste
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 Tablespoon fish sauce , or more to taste
- zest of 2 limes
- Fresh lime juice , to taste (optional)
- 1/2 cup minced cilantro (optional)
Directions
- Make the meatballs: In bowl, mix ground chicken, garlic, ginger, green onion, salt and pepper until evenly combined. Form into balls about 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Oil your hands as you roll to keep chicken from sticking to your hands.
- In a large oven-proof skillet, add oil on medium high heat. Place meatballs in skillet and brown each side, turning often about 2-3 minutes per side until a crust forms. Remove meatballs from pan and set aside.
Make the curry sauce: In the same skillet over medium heat add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in the bay leaf (or lime leaf), curry powder, cayenne pepper. Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, fish sauce, and lime zest. Then stir until combined. Bring liquid to a low simmer.
- Place meatballs back into the skillet and simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes, or until the meatballs are fully cooked (timing will depend on meatball size and how much you seared the meatballs).
If desired, squeeze in some lime juice and top with minced cilantro. Serve over rice, with slices of crusty bread, with flatbreads, or however you prefer to enjoy your curry.
Recipe Video
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What a great recipe! I can’t wait to try this!
I would love to make this for dinner, but I have a question for you first — I was comparing this to your recipe for Curry Coconut Milk Roast Chicken Thighs, and the curry sauces seem identical, except the curry sauce for the chicken thighs also calls for 1 teaspoon of ground cumin. Should the curry sauce for this recipe also have cumin? Both recipes look delicious!
Thank you so much!
Hi Cari, we didn’t add the cumin to this recipe because we wanted it less “spiced” and earthy. To stay with the Thai flavors, we wanted it a little brighter and more umami with the fish sauce. But if you like the flavors of cumin, you can definitely add that to the curry!
I’ll make it the way you intended and not add cumin to the curry sauce — I’m sure we will love this! Thank you!
Looks so easy and so delicious! I’m sure cooking all day can lead you to not want to cook, but this recipe is a clear go to! Can’t wait to try!
Thanks Kasey and hope you enjoy the recipe!
I noticed there are no breadcrumbs or egg in the meatballs, which seem to be staple ingredients in every meat-shaped recipe. About to have a transformative kitchen experience if you say these hold up just as well!
Hi Tara, we make these meatballs on the smaller side, and they’ve always held up for us. If you’re going for much larger meatballs, adding the breadcrumbs might help the big meatballs hold together butter. And if you like the flavor of breadcrumbs, you can still add it to the recipe!