There are so many times that I pull a package of ground beef out of the freezer and wonder, “How am I going to do something new and exciting with this?”  Since we buy a part of a cow, we end up with about 50 pounds of ground beef in our freezer to last the year.  I of course make taco soup, spaghetti sauce and hamburgers, plus the occasional meat loaf.  Then there’s lettuce cups, seven layer dip, and zucchini eggplant casserole.  It’s not that I don’t have lots of different options for cooking with ground beef, but I’ve felt like I was in a creative rut.  Then I started going through my cookbooks and found a recipe for Chinese meatballs in Hawaiian church women’s cookbook from the 70′s.  Although the ingredient list didn’t look very Chinese to me, I liked the idea, and used the inspiration to create my own meatball recipe with Chinese flavors.

Apparently the onion, garlic, cardamom, ginger and coriander worked well together because one of our Chinese students happily told us that the meatballs tasted like home.  Throughout the meal they both kept exclaiming, “This is very delicious!”  Eric and I love them too, but my favorite thing about these meatballs is how easy and cheap they are to make.

If you’ve made any kind of meatballs before, may notice that I don’t have any kind of bread crumbs in the recipe.  The recipe in the cookbook didn’t have any and, although I changed the other ingredients, I decided to stick with skipping the breadcrumbs and only having an egg to bind things together.  This way the meatballs are easily gluten free, the only possible substitution needed is gluten free soy sauce.

Now because of the lack of breadcrumbs, these may seem a little more difficult to cook without crumbling.  But you just need to be gentle with the tongs when you turn them, they’ll hold together just fine.

We really like to serve these over rice with some steamed baby bok choy, drizzled with a simple soy vinegar sauce.  Because I love to share as much as I can with you, I’m including the sauce recipe.  Yay!  Bonus recipe!!!

The nutritional information is just for the meatballs and sauce, you’ll need to factor in rice and vegetables if you use them.

Okay, I feel like I’m finally getting out of my ground beef creative rut, but I can still use your help.  Do you have any unique recipes for ground beef?  Please share!

Chinese Meatballs Recipe

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 lb
  lean ground beef
• 1/2
  a white onion, finely chopped
• 3
  cloves garlic, minced
• 2 TBS
  soy sauce
• 1 TBS
  sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp
  ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp
  ground cardamom
• 1 tsp
  ground ginger
• 1
  egg
• 1/4 cup
  oil (vegetable or coconut oil)

Sauce

• 1/4 cup
  soy sauce
• 1/4 cup
  rice vinegar
• 2 TBS
  honey
• 1/4 tsp
  onion powder
• 1/4 tsp
  garlic powder
• 1 tsp
  cornstarch

Cooking Directions

1. In a large bowl, use freshly washed hands to mix together the ground beef, chopped onion and garlic, 2 TBS of soy sauce, sesame oil, coriander, cardamom, ginger and the egg.
2. Divide meat mixture into 26 one inch meatballs, rolling them between your hands.
3. Heat oil on medium high in a large skillet. Fry meatballs in batches, making sure not to crowd them in the skillet.
4. Let the meatballs brown on one side, then use tongs to turn them until they’re browned all over. Remove to a paper towel lined plate.
5. As the last batch of meatballs is cooking, make your sauce by whisking together the 1/4 cup soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, onion powder, garlic powder and cornstarch. Heat on high, stirring until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat.
6. Place meatballs and cooked vegetable of your choice over rice and drizzle with sauce to serve.

Approximate cost/serving: This comes out to about $4 for me, so just 80 cents a serving.  The cost will go up a little with rice and a vegetable, but still cheap!

Gluten free: The only adaptation needed is to use gluten free soy sauce.  Also, just double check the ingredient list on your cornstarch to make sure it’s gluten free.