These spicy chicken Indonesian Meatballs come complete in a creamy coconut curry sauce that really is quite easy to prepare and are out of bounds delicious!
I love experimenting with different cuisines and using the spices and herbs that are commonly used in different areas, so today we’re travelling to Indonesia with these Bali Balls as I like to call them. The main flavor punches in this recipe are the lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves. They really make this dish and give the meatballs their wonderful aroma and flavor.
I decided to go with a chicken meatball here but beef or pork is great as well. The sauce is to die for, a creamy coconut sauce made with red chili paste, curry powder and of course infused with lots of flavor from the lime leaves and lemongrass. I could put that sauce on everything and drink it out of a glass, it’s so good.
Kaffir Leaves? Lemongrass?
I know that at home in Canada at least, these are two ingredients that aren’t cooked with all that often, which is a shame because they are such beautiful flavorful additions!
Kaffir
Kaffir lime leaves can be found in the produce section of your grocery store near the lemongrass. If you can’t find any, just use regular lime juice. If you have any Asian markets nearby, you can always find them there.
Lemongrass
Lemongrass is a stiff grass native to India and is usually used as a herb in Asian Cuisine. It’s citrusy with a lemony flavor and it tastes like a mix of lemon and lemon mint. Lemongrass is also very fragrant. You’ll want to remove it before eating the dish.
Ingredients
Detailed measurements and instructions can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of the page.
Meatballs
- Meat – We’re using ground chicken today for some nice light meatballs.
- Breadcrumbs – I used panko today as it gives us a nice moist finished product. If you want to use a gluten free substitute for the panko breadcrumbs, substitute with 1/3 cup potato starch, also called potato flour.
- Chili – I chopped up a fresh chili pepper to give this dish lots of heat. You can omit this ingredient if you’d prefer.
- Garlic – Use as much or little as you like.
- Spices – Nutmeg and garam masala. Garam masala is an Indian spice blend that gives these meatballs tons of dimension.
- Red curry paste – We’re really bringing a ton of South East Asian influence to our dish today and this paste adds a touch of heat, color, and flavor.
- Herbs – Chopped fresh cilantro and chopped green onion.
- Seasoning – Salt and pepper.
- Egg – The binder of our humble little meatballs!
- Oil – I used peanut oil for frying these up, feel free to use any neutral tasting high smoke point oil you prefer.
Sauce
- Lemongrass – 2 stalks, removed before serving.
- Kaffir lime leaves – 5 of them fresh. I never use up all the ones I buy in one recipe so I store the rest in the freezer.
- Broth – Chicken broth low sodium.
- Red curry paste – We want to ensure that our curry paste flavor makes its way through all elements of this dish.
- Coconut milk – Unsweetened, whichever fat percentage you prefer.
- Coconut – Sweetened and shredded, totally optional but completely delicious.
- Seasoning – Salt and pepper to taste.
- Spices – Just curry powder for this part of the dish.
- Cilantro – Cut up fresh. Feel free to omit this ingredient if you’re not a fan of the taste.
How To Make Indonesian Meatballs
Meatballs
- Combine the meatballs: In a large bowl add all the meatball ingredients, except the peanut oil, and mix well using your clean hands. Shape the meat mixture into 1 inch meatballs. You should get around 40 meatballs.
- Fry the meatballs: In a skillet heat the peanut oil over medium heat. Add the meatballs and fry until golden all around, should take about 7 minutes. If your skillet isn’t large enough you may need to do this in a couple batches. Transfer the meatballs to a plate and set aside
Sauce
- Prepare the lemongrass: Trim the top and base of the lemongrass stalks and peel off any dry or tough outer layers. Using a meat mallet, pound the lemongrass stalks until well bruised to release the flavor.
- Combine the sauce: In the same skillet that was used to fry the meatballs add the chicken broth, red curry paste, unsweetened coconut milk, curry powder, salt, pepper, Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. Stir everything together and bring to a boil.
- Incorporate the meatballs: Add the meatballs back to the skillet, toss them around to cover them in the sauce, then cook for another 8 to 10 minutes, uncovered over medium-low heat. Remove the lemongrass and lime leaves from the sauce.
- Finish the dish: If you’re adding the shredded coconut, add it now and stir. I added this for a bit of sweetness to the sauce, but this is totally optional. You could also add a tsp or so of brown sugar. Garnish with cilantro and serve over cooked rice.
How To Serve
I prefer to serve these Indonesian meatballs over white rice but they’re also delicious over rice noodles!
- Mashed Potatoes
- Creamy Polenta
- Coconut Rice
- Rice noodles – cooked according to package instructions.
Some Tips and Tricks
- You can use ground lamb, ground veal, ground pork, or ground beef instead of chicken for this recipe. You can even use an equal combination of all of the above!
- Fresh breadcrumbs will really set this dish off so feel free to go in this direction if you’d like. This page is a great guide for making your own.
- If you find your meatballs are a bit dry, try cubing up some bread nice and small and soaking in a bit of milk before incorporating into the meatballs. This is a traditionally Italian way of ensuring moisture.
- Don’t crowd your pan when frying these up, this is to ensure that your Indonesian Meatballs brown properly.
- If you’re still having trouble with your meatballs, try referencing this page to trouble shoot what exactly is going wrong.
Leftovers
These Indonesian meatballs can be made ahead of time. Both the sauce and the meatballs themselves are perfect for the fridge or freezer.
Fridge
These meatballs can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 – 4 days.
Freezer
This recipe also freezes quite well so just be sure to separate the balls from the sauce in airtight containers and store. Each should last around 3 months frozen. Just allow them to thaw in the fridge overnight and reheat on the stove top when ready to eat!
Craving More Meatballs? Try These Delicious Recipes:
- Stout Meatballs With BBQ Sauce
- Salisbury Steak Meatballs with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes
- Moroccan Meatballs
- Meatballs with Mushroom Sauce
- Porcupine Meatballs
- Thai Meatball Lettuce Wraps
- Cheesy Chicken Meatball Rolls
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Indonesian Meatballs
Ingredients
For Meatballs
- 1 1/2 lb ground chicken
- 1 cup bread crumbs, I used Panko
- 1 red chili pepper chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg ground
- 5 green onions chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro chopped
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp red curry paste optional
- 2 tbsp peanut oil for frying meatballs
For Sauce
- 2 stalks lemongrass *
- 1 cup chicken broth low sodium
- 2 tbsp red curry paste
- 14 oz unsweetened coconut milk (1 can 403 ml)
- 1 tbsp curry powder
- 1/4 tsp salt or to taste
- 1/4 tsp pepper or to taste
- 5 fresh Kaffir lime leaves
- 2 tbsp sweetened shredded coconut optional
- 1 tbsp fresh cilantro chopped
Instructions
- In a large bowl add all the meatball ingredients, except the peanut oil, and mix well using your clean hands. Shape the meat mixture into 1 inch meatballs. You should get around 40 meatballs.
- In a skillet heat the peanut oil over medium heat. Add the meatballs and fry until golden all around, should take about 7 minutes. If your skillet isn’t large enough you may need to do this in a couple batches. Transfer the meatballs to a plate and set aside.
- Trim the top and base of the lemongrass stalks and peel off any dry or tough outer layers. Using a meat mallet, pound the lemongrass stalks until well bruised to release the flavor.
- In the same skillet that was used to fry the meatballs add the chicken broth, red curry paste, unsweetened coconut milk, curry powder, salt, pepper, Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. Stir everything together and bring to a boil.
- Add the meatballs back to the skillet, toss them around to cover them in the sauce, then cook for another 8 to 10 minutes, uncovered over medium-low heat.
- Remove the lemongrass and lime leaves from the sauce.
- If you’re adding the shredded coconut, add it now and stir. I added this for a bit of sweetness to the sauce, but this is totally optional. You could also add a tsp or so of brown sugar.
- Garnish with cilantro and serve over cooked rice.
Make this recipe all the time for my mummy and daddy
This was relatively easy to make and not too much of a kick, but your choice if you would like to have a bit more of a kick. Lemon grass was a pain, I don’t like to find ‘stringy’ bits in any dish as it reminds me of hair!!! One for my son’ s freezer enjoyable and will make again
Hey Sue! I feel the same exact way you do about lemongrass. But I love the aroma and taste. So once I clean it up, before I throw it in my pot I like to tie it with some kitchen twine. That way I can pull it out all at once and no loosey bits escape into my sauces. Hope this tip helps you!
Made this dish on Saturday night and had friends over for dinner and it was delicious. Every body loved it will definitely be making it again
Hi Jo,
I came across your site yesterday when I was looking for chicken piccata recipe. I made it and it was a success! My husband is a native Italian and a good cook, he is pretty picky on food especially when it comes to Italian dishes. But he loved the chicken that I made yesterday, great recipe! I think I will be visiting your site often 🙂
Btw, I stumbled upon this recipe because I saw “Indonesian” written on the title so I was pretty curious about it. I’m a native Indonesian, born and grew up in West Sumatera area. We are pretty popular in Indonesia as being good cook and our traditional dishes -famously known as Minang cuisines, originated from our ethnic Minangkabau- are also very popular in all over Indonesia and in the neighboring countries. We cook a lot of curry type dishes, and I’m saying this without bragging just as a statistical fact that Minang curry dishes, is probably one of the types that Indonesians look up too the most when they cook this kind of dishes. But Indonesian cuisines are very diverse just like the people. So different flavor from different place is common for us 🙂
My introduction is very long, but this recipe is the reason why I wanted to comment. It looks like a pretty good dish even though I have to say that we don’t have any traditional dish like this 🙂 and If I may comment further, there are a lot of ingredients that we don’t use at all in our dishes (red curry paste for instance, is not Indonesian. Our curry is quite different from Thai’s). But I understand as you said that you have never been in Indonesia but you tried some Indonesian dishes which you used to based the recipe upon. As an Indonesian I really appreciate that you highlighted my country and wrote this recipe!
If you want my suggestions for a more traditional taste of Indonesia, I’d be happy to share some recipes 🙂
Cheers,
Meri
Thanks for your comment! I’d love some Indonesian recipes, feel free to email me at jo@jocooks.com.
Hi there what’s the white sauce drizzled over them looks like yogurt?
It’s actually yogurt, which I thinned out a bit with some milk, just so that I can drizzle over the meatballs.
where have you been all my life! I came across the Indonesian meatball recipe on facebook. I made them and they are seriously so tasty. I used half the amount of panko as I try and prep for lunch weekly. was sick of the boring ones I would always make for lunch. I plan to search for some more low cal recipes on your site.
thanks again!
These sounds amazing, next up on my list. The only change I’ll probably make is a technique I’ve found works great with Green/Red Curry Chicken; instead of just adding the red curry paste into the pot if you fry it with oil first (a tablespoon of coconut oil is perfect!) on a hight heat and then slowly add a few spoonfuls of coconut milk you’ll get a phenomenal base that just isn’t possible when adding it to the other liquids. I will report back, thank you!
Hi Michael, can’t wait to hear how it turned out!
Would it be possible to throw everything in the crockpot? Dog days of summer here and i am hoping to just come home and eat….
Hi Sak! I have to say I haven’t tried these in a crockpot so I cannot tell you with certainty, but you can definitely do meatballs in a crockpot, so I think this should work. If you do try it, I’d love to hear how they turned out.
OMG these meatballs was amazing!! I was too worried about the coconut milk curdling so I just made everything on the stovetop. I am so happy my lazy mentality didn’t win over this one because the sauce was so so so GOOD!! It smells so good right now in my small apt., my neighbors are probably drooling right now. Thanks for this great recipe
So glad you liked them! 😘
Hi
Can I substitute bread crumbs with potato or tapioca flour? We are gluten free and dairy free and looking for substitutes. This looks delicious !
I haven’t used tapioca flour before so I can’t advise you there, however I have used potato flour in meatballs and I know it works great. Would love to hear how they turn out!
Thanks you – I will. Looks heavenly. Can I leave out the coconut milk? just found out my son cannot do coconut milk 🙁
The coconut milk really does give it that nice creamy taste, but perhaps try replacing it with heavy cream.
I use rice krispies crushed a bit and mixed with the egg and liquid before adding to the meat in meatball recipes to make them for my gluten sensitive family.
Hi Jo, thanks for sharing this recipe. Made it night before last with pork mince and it was a huge hit. Only thing is I needed to double the sauce quantity. I understand this pushes up the calories, but mainly added more chicken stock. DELISH!
Glad you liked it Marg!
Hello,
Do you use red chili paste or red curry paste?
Thanks Anita. We updated the recipe as it was red curry paste. Thanks for catching that! Hope you tried them and know you will like them
This looks unbelievably delicious. I always have a hard time finding that kind of lime leaf, but I’ll have to look for this recipe!
Thanks Jennie! I find it at the market and whenever I do, I buy a whole lot and freeze it. Let me know how you like the meatballs. 🙂
I’m going to make your Indonesian meatball recipe. Can you give me some ideas on a couple of side dishes to go along with the meatballs? Love your recipes!
Hi Carol! I served these meatballs over some rice, but it works on mashed potatoes as well. I’d also serve some steamed broccoli or green beans with it, really nice.
Brilliant – another wonderful way to serve chicken – such great flavors!
These were so fun to create and so awesome and full of taste
yummy!