This recipe for Thai Turkey Meatballs with Coconut Lemongrass Sauce, created by chef and friend, MaryAnn Delaney instantly transports me to sunny Thailand with its fragrant aromas and fresh ingredients.
The turkey meatballs are made with ground turkey and simmered in a fragrant Coconut Lemongrass Sauce, infused with star anise, cardamom, and coriander that will make you want to lick the bowl.
Fresh lime and cilantro finish the dish giving it a beautiful brightness that I crave. Serve these as an appetizer, or with rice for dinner, or over a bowl of rice noodles, mopping up the delicious sauce.
Thai Turkey Meatballs Video
Those of you who know MaryAnn, will agree when I say that she is genuinely one of the most thoughtful humans I have ever known. Her peaceful, gentle way blesses those around her, without her even being aware of it.
Her deep and soulful spirit, reminds me often, that we too have a wellspring of wisdom and insight that we can dip into if we choose to. I feel honored to be able to witness her journey through this world …and share a little of her here.
Ingredients in Turkey Meatballs
- ground turkey (or sub ground chicken)
- olive oil or peanut oil
- shallots and garlic
- lemongrass
- ginger
- soy sauce
- fish sauce
- Sambal Oelek, or chili paste
- panko breadcrumbs ( or gluten-free breadcrumbs, or almond meal)
- cilantro
- salt and pepper
- cardamom pods
- cinnamon stick
- turmeric
- coriander seeds
- star anise
- coconut milk
- limes
How to make Ground Turkey Meatballs
Like every good recipe, it starts with fresh, whole ingredients. Ginger, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, and whole spices- cinnamon, star anise and cardamom.
Add to a skillet and saute them until tender. Add garlic and chopped lemongrass.
Add fresh ginger and fish sauce and red chili paste.
Add fresh cilantro and optional bread crumbs.
Mix well.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper, and with wet hands form turkey meatballs.
This recipe makes about 18 two-inch meatballs.
Place the meatballs in the fridge for 1 hour, allowing flavors to meld and meat to firm up.
Then brown them in a skillet with oil.
When the meatballs are browned, add bruised lemongrass stalks and ginger to the same pan.
Crush cardamom, star anise and add to the pan.
Add the cinnamon stick, turmeric, ginger pieces, coriander seeds, coconut milk and bring to a simmer.
Enjoy as an appetizer (pricking with appetizer forks) or turn it into a meal and serve with rice or over a bowl of rice noodles.
More recipes you may like:
- Zaatar Meatballs with Green Tahini Sauce
- Thai Turkey Burger Recipe w/ Asian Slaw
- Italian Turkey Meatballs with Sundried Tomatoes & Basil
- Lamb Meatballs with Indian Curry Sauce
- Moroccan Meatballs with Pomegranate Glaze
Thai Turkey Meatballs with Lemongrass Coconut Sauce
- Prep Time: 60 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 mins
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Main
- Method: stovetop
- Cuisine: Thai
Description
Flavorful Thai Turkey Meatballs with Coconut Curry Sauce
Ingredients
Turkey Meatballs:
- 1.5 pounds ground turkey
- 1 tablespoon olive or peanut oil
- 1/3 cup chopped shallots
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 stalk of lemongrass white part only chopped fine ( 2–3 tablespoons)
- 1.5 tablespoons grated ginger
- 1 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Sambal Oelek, or chili paste
- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs ( or gluten-free breadcrumbs, or almond meal)
- 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Coconut Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons olive or peanut oil
- 2 stalks of lemongrass, trimmed
- 3 cardamom pods lightly cracked
- 3” cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1.5 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and cut into 3 pieces
- 1.5 tsp coriander seeds
- 2 points of a star anise pod
- 1 14.5 oz can of coconut milk with full cream
- 1 cup chicken stock
- salt and pepper to taste
- juice from 1/2 of a lime
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and lemongrass and cook for one minute longer. Take the pan off of the heat and set aside so that the shallot mixture can cool down a little.
- Transfer the ground turkey to a bowl and create a well in the center of the ground turkey. Add the ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, chili paste, bread crumbs, cilantro and salt and pepper along with the reserved shallot mixture to the well. Mix with your hands or a spoon until just combined. Dampen your hands and shape the mixture into meatballs. This will make 18 to 20 2” meatballs.
- Place the meatballs on the prepared baking sheet and refrigerate for about an hour. This step will give the flavors time to meld and help the meatballs stay together while you cook them.Heat the remaining 2 Tbs of oil over medium-high in a large skillet. When the pan is hot add the meatballs and brown on all sides.
- Bruise the lemongrass with a mortar and pestle and add to the skillet. Give the cardamom pods a light tap with the pestle and if you don’t have one you can use the back of a knife. Add the cinnamon stick, turmeric, ginger pieces, coriander seeds, star anise points, coconut milk and bring to a simmer.
- Slowly add the chicken stock and simmer the meatballs over medium heat for 10 to 12 minutes. Add the fresh-squeezed lime juice and salt and pepper to taste.
- Garnish with lime zest and cilantro. You can enjoy as an appetizer, or turn it into a meal and serve over rice or rice noodles.
Notes
For a low-carb option, try almond meal instead of bread crumbs.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 3 meat balls
- Calories: 475
- Sugar: 2.9 g
- Sodium: 1693.1 mg
- Fat: 31.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 16.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 20 g
- Fiber: 2.3 g
- Protein: 27.4 g
- Cholesterol: 79.4 mg
Can you freeze this and the sauce ?
I haven’t tried freezing, but I don’t see why not?
Did you try freezing it? I need to do the same thing for a party and just want to confirm with someone that has frozen it !
Everyone loves these I usually don’t cook them until the next day
Trying this recipe next week but cannot get lemongrass here. However i have lemongrass paste. Could i use that?
Yes, use that!
Delicious and refreshing. Wrote the recipe down so I can try it on my own.
I have made this soooo many times – it is one of my family’s favorites. In fact, making it tonight for Sunday dinner:)
Great to hear! Glad you like it!
Am making this for the second time tonight. It is absolutely the most flavorful, fun dish to make and eat! Didn’t change a thing, and it was quite simply perfection. THANK YOU!!
Yay Alison! I love this one too! Thanks for rating, very appreciated!!!
My husband and I loved this recipe! I served it over rice noodles as mentioned to make a meal. I was simply looking for something new to do with the ground turkey in my fridge and came across this delectable recipe. I was very curious as to the flavor that this recipe would produce given the combo of spicy ingredients paired with lemongrass and shallots. Together the herbs and spices create a unique taste of East meets West origin. No doubt this is authentic Thai cuisine. It is definitely a keeper!
Yes, I really like this one too! such good flavors….so happy you enjoyed it!
Great flavors !! Labor intensive but worth every minute. Leftovers were great too!! Will prepare it again.
It gets easier the second time around! Glad you liked it!!!
Love meatballs! Can’t wait to try these this weekend.
Scrummy! Finger licking delicious, made twice now and everyone is raving about it, served a choice of rice or thick linguine pasta with it, with loads of condiments. Highly recommend !!
Kay- thanks so much for letting us know…appreciate it!!
Hello Sylvia. My wife and I made this dish again last night, but made a few changes. I used a microplane grater for the lemongrass and the ginger so it was super fine. For the cardamom, coriander seeds, and star anise, we used a coffee grinder and ground it very fine. We didn’t have any fish sauce, so we used oyster sauce. Also this time we used powered Saigon cinnamon(1 teaspoon) instead of the stick. For the meatballs, we put them directly on a cookie sheet and baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes turning the pan several times. Once they were done we added them to the sauce. There were some browned bits left on the cookie sheet, so I added a little water to the hot pan and scraped the remnants up, then added them water and all to the sauce. It gave it more of a brown color, but really added to the flavor. On our first attempt we didn’t want chunks of seeds, etc, so we put the cardamom, coriander seeds, and star anise in a cloth tea bag and then removed it when done. We thought this time was our best tasting attempt at this dish. All the flavors really came out, maybe because of the grinding. . Many thinks for all the delicious recipes!
Thanks for this Randy…it sounds delicious! I will try that next time! Hope the island is treating you well.
We LOVE this recipe and make it weekly. We also added peas and red peppers which also ad a little more colour. THANK YOU
Oh that’s great Sally!! Thanks for sharing…and love how you have added…to make it your own!
This sounds just perfect. If this is any where near as good as it looks and sounds I seriously need to try it out asap! Beautiful food
Planning on making this tasty looking dish tomorrow and I was wondering if it would be ok to make It then reheat later in the day?
Yes, absolutely!
My husband and I just finished making/eating this. TOTAL HOMERUN. Wow. The only thing I did differently was to strain the sauce at the end as I don’t enjoy eating around cardamom pods and lemongrass stalks (I know, that’s the authentic way, but what can I say…) but other than that, I followed the recipe to a T and it was even better than I expected it would be. You have a new devoted fan. Thanks for posting this. I can’t wait to make it again for friends. OH, and to the person who claimed it would turn brown: NOPE. It stayed a beautiful yellow green. YUMMMMMM.
Yay! Im so glad you liked it!!Thanks for the the feedback Desiree!!
Hi Sylvia, I just posted your link and Mary Ann Delaney’s recipe on my Facebook author website along with a picture of my not as pretty dish. We tried the recipe on my husband and in-laws this weekend and it is so delicious. Thank you! We made two batches because someone was trying to cut out the carbs (Panko) and it is equally good without. Also we made one dish with less chicken broth and it is great if you want more of the taste of the lemongrass. Just an option! —Tess
This recipe seems so delicious and healthy. This sounds good to have recipe with coconut. Thanks for providing such Coconut Turkey Soup
That is a great question. Can you get Chinese Five Spice? Try a pinch or two of that, you just need a hint. You could use a little ground cardamom as well.
when serving the sauce, do you take out the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick and like, the ginger root and seeds? I assume you can’t really eat that?
Simply gorgeous! It looks to be simply delicious too. I love meatballs and the sauce you used is splendid!
Thanks Carol. Hope you are having a good week. Happy holidays to you!!!
Yes, to keep it nice and bright yellow, you can’t simmer it too long. 🙂 We just did a light simmering, and the meatballs were just lightly browned. Did you use turkey?
This looks delicious, I love the color of the sauce, and the smell must be just heavenly with all those delicious spices and the lemongrass!
It does smell heavenly! And tastes heavenly!! Have a great week Mary Frances!
What a wonderful comforting dish, love the meatballs and the coconut sauce.
Through this post, you have successfully transported me back to my beloved Thailand where I have spent many years teaching and conducting research . . . and thoroughly falling in love with their exquisite, unique cuisine! I cannot wait to try this recipe and to continue to learn more about your recipes from being a new reader of your blog. I found you from another blogger that I follow and am grateful for this. Wishing you the best,
Roz
Thank you Roz and welcome to the blog, I’m so glad you are here!
I cannot wait to try this, just have to go and get the turkey mince. What a bautiful dish!
Thanks…let us know how you like it! You can also use ground chicken. Happy holidays to you!