Teriyaki sauce made sense in meatballs. Diced water chestnuts caught me off guard.
Adding water chestnuts to a beef-and-pork meatball mixture creates small crisp bites against the tender meat. They don't dominate the recipe, but they keep the inside from having one uniform texture from edge to center.
Dice the Water Chestnuts Before Adding Them
For a batch made with 1 pound of lean ground beef and ½ pound of ground pork, add ⅓ cup of diced water chestnuts.
Keep the pieces small enough to distribute across the mixture. Each meatball should contain bits of water chestnut rather than a few large chunks concentrated in one spot.
The recipe combines them with garlic, panko breadcrumbs, teriyaki sauce, green onions, black pepper, one egg, and an extra egg yolk.
Beef and Pork Form the Meatball Base
Lean ground beef provides most of the meat, while ground pork adds more fat to the mixture. The combination helps produce a tender meatball without relying on the sauce for all of its moisture.
Panko gives the mixture structure, while egg and egg yolk help hold everything together. Teriyaki sauce goes inside the meatballs too, so the flavor isn't limited to the glaze added after baking.
Mix the ingredients just until combined. Working ground meat too much can give finished meatballs a firmer texture.
Bake the Meatballs Before Adding the Glaze
Form the mixture into meatballs about 1 to 1½ inches across and arrange them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake at 400°F for about 20 minutes, then let them rest on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes. Using a cookie scoop can help keep each meatball close to the same size so they cook at a similar rate.
The teriyaki sauce doesn't need to go over them before baking. It comes after the meatballs have cooked.
Toss Them in Warm Teriyaki Sauce
Transfer the baked meatballs to a bowl and toss them with about ½ cup of teriyaki sauce. Green onions and sesame seeds can go over the top before serving.
Warming the sauce first helps it coat the meatballs, while keeping the glaze until the end gives you a glossy exterior instead of baking the sauce onto the pan.
Serve them with toothpicks as an appetizer or put them over rice for dinner.
Teriyaki gives the meatballs their sweet-savory coating, but the water chestnuts are the detail I didn't expect. Their crisp texture survives inside the tender beef-and-pork mixture, changing each bite without requiring another sauce or topping.
Would you put chopped water chestnuts inside meatballs, or keep them out of the mixture?
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