Air Fry Chicken Meatballs
These air fry chicken meatballs are a versatile dish with an Asian-inspired flavor, thanks to green onions, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil. The soy-based sauce is a perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and mildly spicy. Serve them as an appetizer with the sauce for dipping, or coat the meatballs and serve over rice for a satisfying meal.
Ingredients
For the Meatballs
- 1 lb ground chicken or turkey
- 3 green onions (save 1 tbsp green tops for garnish)
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
For the Sauce
- 3 tablespoons Light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons hot honey or regular honey
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl add the ground chicken, green onions, garlic, ginger, toasted sesame oil, salt and pepper. Use your hands to mix all these ingredients together.
- Gently press into 12-15 balls with your hands. You can use a cookie scoop to get more uniform sized balls if you want. Wet your hands with water to help prevent sticking.
- Preheat your air fryer. Lay the meatballs down in the air fryer basket in one layer with room for airflow to go around each of the chicken meatballs. Air fry at 385F for 15 - 17 minutes. While the chicken meatballs are air frying, make the sauce.
- In a small bowl add the cornstarch and water. Mix together to form a slurry. Add in the rest of the sauce ingredients (soy sauce, hot honey, sesame oil, rice vinegar) and stir together.
- Pour sauce into a small saucepan and heat over medium heat while constantly stirring with a spoon until it begins to thicken and turns translucent, about 2 minutes. Set aside.
- If Serving as a Meal - When the meatballs are done, place them into the saucepan with the sauce and stir them around to cover them completely with the sauce. Serve over rice and garnish with thinly sliced green onions. Enjoy!
- If Serving as an Appetizer - When the meatballs are done, place them on a serving plate and garnish with green onions. Serve the sauce in a small bowl alongside the meatballs for dipping. Enjoy!
Notes
- I didn't use an egg in this recipe. I find that ground chicken is already very moist, and adding an egg isn't necessary.
- Ground chicken is used in this recipe, but turkey could easily be substituted if that is what you have on hand.
- When making the sauce, mix the cornstarch with the water first because it is a small amount of liquid. This helps to prevent the cornstarch from going lumpy.
- These meatballs can be made gluten-free by just making sure the soy sauce you use is gluten-free and by not adding the breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs help to give a little extra structure making them easier to handle when raw, but the overall flavor and texture are pretty much the same with or without them.