Easy and delicious Asian-inspired orange hoisin meatballs, served in a bowl with rice and stir fried bok choy. Can be made with ground pork, ground chicken, ground turkey or ground beef.
These delicious Asian-inspired hoisin meatballs are one of my favourite quick and easy dinners. The meatballs are baked quickly in a hot oven. While the meatballs are baking, simply put on some rice or grains and prepare your veg and sauce. It all comes together quickly in a wok or hot frying pan right at the end.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Ground meat – You can use ground pork, ground turkey, ground chicken or ground beef here, as the flavours go well with all meats.
Bok Choy – I used Shanghai Bok Choy here. Baby Bok Choy is also great, as is any green that you can quickly saute (kale, chard, collards, spinach etc.)
Rice -I used basmati rice in my bowls, but brown rice, quinoa or other grains would also be a great choice.
Recipe Tips
- When I cooked this up, I quickly stir fried the greens first, then added the sauce, which works fine, but makes the greens quite well cooked. If you prefer your greens just wilted (I think I do, actually), remove the greens before adding the sauce.
Making ahead, Storing and Freezing
You can easily make the meatballs ahead and refrigerate or freeze.
Get the Recipe: Orange Hoisin Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 lb. ground pork, chicken, turkey or beef
- 3 Tablespoons flour
- 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 Tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced or 1 teaspoon ginger paste
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Pinch red pepper flakes
- Zest of 1/2 orange
- Salt and pepper, (note that soy sauce does add some saltiness)
Sauce:
- 2 Tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 1 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 Tablespoon fresh orange juice
- 1/2 cup chicken stock, or water
- Zest of 1/2 orange
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Greens:
- 1 Tablespoons cooking oil
- Bok Choy , or other greens, roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, mince
To Serve:
- Rice or grains, for servings
- green onion, chopped, for garnish
- Orange wedges, for drizzling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 460 F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (for easy clean-up) and set aside.
- If making rice or grains, start that cooking first.
- In a medium bowl, combine the ground pork with the flour, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, orange zest and salt and pepper. Form mixture in to walnut-sized meatballs and place on prepared baking sheet. (I got 15 meatballs out of 550g of ground pork).
- Bake meatballs in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned and cooked through. Drain any fat and keep warm until needed.
- Meanwhile, while the meatballs are cooking, prepare sauce by combining all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Prepare greens by roughly chopping and removing stems, if necessary.
- Heat oil in a wok or skillet over medium-high heat. Add greens and cook, stirring constantly, until just wilted. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for another 30 seconds. (If you'd like your greens to stay just wilted, remove to a plate before adding sauce, otherwise, just leave them in). Add sauce and cook, stirring, a minute or so until sauce is hot and thickened. Remove from heat.
- To serve: Spoon rice in to serving bowls. Top with greens and meatballs. Spoon sauce overtop. Garnish with chopped green onion and an orange wedge, for drizzling.
Notes
More RIce Bowl Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
Will try this next Monday as Florida Oranges in season..can’t wait will report back!
Pat
All the juices mixed so well with the rice . Orange brings it to another level. Very good dish for a weeknight. Not very difficult to make. We enjoyed it. Thanks!
Pat
So glad you enjoyed it, Pat :) Thanks!
I’d like to share this by email since I’m not on facebook or twitter – how could I? Why does the oven have to be so hot ( 460 F) ?
Thanks.
Hi Mare, First, the oven is so hot since we want them to cook quickly. They are only in the oven 10 minutes or so. It also helps the meatballs to get some colour, since ground chicken can be kind of anemic :)
As for emailing, I’m not sure what you mean exactly. I’m assuming you want to share the recipe, but unsure beyond that. You want to email it to other people or to yourself?
Thanks for your reply. I want to email your recipe to other people but don’t see a link to email, only pinterest, facebook and twitter.
Ahhh, I see. So the Pinterest/Facebook and Twitter links aren’t for sharing the actual recipe there. It’s for sharing a link to the recipe (bookmarking, essentially). So the email version of that would be to send the link to this page to other people by email. That’s the best way for me, as it means that people will be able to read the recipe here and take advantage of all the other information and tips that are shared along with the recipe etc. as well. And while I don’t mind people copying a recipe to their own files for their own personal use, if it’s widely distributed by email (just the recipe) and people never have to visit my site, there’s not much in it for me, in return for the work I put into developing/publishing it etc. So all that is to say, I’d really appreciate it if you would just share a link to the recipe, rather than the entire recipe. Hope that makes sense.
Of course. I only wanted to share this with one other person and wouldn’t know how to do the rest anyway so you have nothing to worry about.
No worries with that Mare. Your best bet is to copy and paste it into an email then.
I know fresh ginger is best but can you use ginger powder instead?
Hi Janice and yes, you can. You’ll use a lot less. The ratio is roughly 1/8 tsp powdered ginger for 3 tsp fresh. (Btw, have you ever tried the ginger in the tube that is available in the produce section? I love that stuff. A little milder than freshly grated fresh ginger, but still with the fresh flavour. And it keeps forever in the fridge, so I’m never out).
Finally made this for dinner tonight. Really liked the flavours. And made the meatballs small so I have extras to put in the freezer for another meal. ?
Glad you enjoyed this one, Sandra and great idea making extra meatballs for another meal!
You and I like a lot of the same things, Jennifer. I don’t often cook with ground chicken either but I have been spicing it up and it makes such a huge difference. LOVE my citrus – especially this time of year. And I’m all about slightly wilted greens – anything more just doesn’t do it for me.
So that said, this is my idea of a perfect meal especially because meatballs cancel out everything else, lol. There is nothing better – period!
Your photography is breathtaking. Perfect light! Sharing :)
Thanks so much, Robyn :)
Thanks Jennifer. This was delicious and got rave reviews! Love your recipes and your blog. You explain everything so well and make your recipes so easy to follow. I appreciate all you do!
So glad, Dena and thanks so much :)
If I use beef, do I have to change anything? Do you think it will be ok?
It would be all good Dena. Shouldn’t have to change anything.
What a tasty dish Jennifer. :-)
I do like using ground chicken in some of my dishes and this recipe is going to be another one.
The combination of the citrus and ginger is right up my alley.
As always, your pictures are wonderful, you’re making me hungry and I just ate….LOL!
Have a nice day Jennifer!
Pinned!
Thanks Dalila :) You will love this dish, for sure then!
I love this kind of dinner – fast, flavorful, and perfect for busy weeknights. Love that touch of citrus and as a fellow carb-o-colic, the basmati rice is a must! :)
Thanks Laura and yes, I do love my basmati rice too :)
Yummy! My kind of dinner, for sure. I’m with you – ground chicken is not always my first choice but in something like this, so full of flavor, it’s wonderful!
Thanks Chris and I have to say, I rather enjoyed the chicken meatballs. The texture is obviously more dense than beef or pork, but they had lots of flavour and were nice and hearty!
Ginger and garlic and orange – what a terrific, flavorful combination! Your creativity cannot be beat Jennifer and the photos are absolutely gorgeous. Baby Bok Choy is one of my favorites too – I love everything about this dish but especially how easy it is to put together. Amazing!
Thanks Tricia :) These are my favourite meals – full of flavour, easy and a little leaner!
Citrus season is the best, right?! While I love baking with citrus, I’m more of a savory girl, so these meatball bowls are right up my alley! I love the hoisin and orange pairing here! AND the bok choy – it’s so underrated! I am totally making these for dinner sometime soon! Cheers, girlfriend!
Thanks Cheyanne :) There is nothing like a little citrus to brighten up a dish, especially this time of year!
I love baking and cooking with orange too Jennifer. I’ll definitely need to try these meatballs. The sauce sounds so flavorful. I also love that you served it with bok choy. Can’t wait to try.
Thanks Mary Ann. This is such an easy dinner, too. Win win :)