Homemade Thai coconut curry meatballs are a grain-free recipe infused with exotic flavors! Served with healthy sauteed spiralized vegetables.
My family has a meatball obsession, can you relate? Tender, flavorful, protein-packed bites seasoned with any flavor you are craving, what’s not to love? We eat a lot of traditional spaghetti and meatballs per the Italian hubby request, and you gotta enjoy Grandma’s secret meatball recipe! However, I wanted to add a little variety and spice to our routine.
As I was thinking of what recipe to make next, a light bulb went off. Let’s switch it up with some Thai coconut curry meatballs! Why not right? I wanted to infuse some Eastern flavors into each plump meatball and make the meal grain-free. I used lean grass-fed ground beef mixed with garlic, ginger, onion, jalapeno, chili paste, and chopped mushrooms to replace the breadcrumbs.
My secret and essential Thai ingredient is fish sauce. It’s an intensely flavored brown sauce that can enhance the taste of any meal 1000 times if you use it sparingly, plus it’s got a pungent smell but so worth it. There’s a little bit inside the meatball mixture and the curry sauce.
Let’s talk about that luscious red curry sauce! I use a concentrated red curry paste that is a combination of aromatic herbs like lemongrass, galangal and red chili’s, plus some fragrant spices. Together these ingredients give a flavor explosion! The sauce then gets some silky sweet coconut milk and just a splash of the fish sauce.
Let’s spiralize! I recently got my first handheld spiralizer and have been using it on anything I can get my hands on. It adds this wonderful volume to your vegetables, creating a more interesting and enjoyable texture.
The spiralizer tool is essentially a giant vegetable pencil sharpener that allows you to create large ribbons of vegetables. I used sweet potatoes and zucchini for this dish, and thinly sliced some bell peppers. Quick stir fry and the vegetable noodles were tender and crisp, the perfect complement to the coconut curry meatballs!
Spice up your meals with these healthier coconut curry meatballs with fresh spiralized zucchini noodles! This hearty meal will leave you feeling satisfied, so much that you won’t notice that the pasta and bread are missing.
You can also use green curry if you like the flavor of green chili’s better, there are many ways to customize the sauce. Not to mention you could also use pork, chicken or ground turkey instead of beef. I would love to hear how you put your own spin on this tasty meatball recipe!
Recipe Science
What are the basic ingredients in a curry paste?
Thai curry paste is a blend of different aromatic herbs, spices, and chilies of various heat ground together with a mortar and pestle or food processor. The intensely concentrated paste can then be diluted into a thin or thick sauce using coconut milk or other liquids. Savory flavors come from the fish sauce or shrimp paste. Sweet notes come from palm sugar or coconut cream/milk. Sour notes come from tamarind, lemongrass, limes or kaffir lime leaves. The spiciness comes from red, green or yellow chili peppers.
Coconut Curry Meatballs with Vegetable Noodles
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger, minced
- ¼ cup yellow onion, minced
- 1 cup brown mushrooms, finely chopped
- 1 jalapeño, minced, (about 2 tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon sriracha, or chili paste
- ½ teaspoon fish sauce
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch, or arrow root starch
Vegetable Noodles
- 1 sweet potato, thinly sliced (3 cups)
- 1 bell pepper, thinly sliced (1 cup)
- 2 zucchini, thinly sliced (3 cups)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Coconut Curry Sauce
- 13.5 ounces coconut milk
- 2 tablespoons red curry paste
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup, or honey, optional
- ½ teaspoon fish sauce
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 400°F. Line a large sheet pan with foil and lightly grease with oil or cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl thoroughly combine ground beef, garlic, ginger, onion, mushrooms, jalapeno, chili paste, fish sauce, salt, and pepper. Add egg and mix until combined. Add cornstarch and mix until no powder is visible.
- Form into two tablespoon-sized meatballs and transfer to the prepared sheet pan. Bake for 13 minutes, flip over and cook another 2 to 3 minutes until cooked through. Remove from the oven and set aside.
- Meanwhile, prepare the vegetable noodles and set aside.
- Make the coconut curry sauce. Heat a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the coconut milk and bring to a light boil. Whisk in the red curry paste until combined. Taste and add two teaspoons of maple syrup if desired.
- Add fish sauce, adjust to taste. Reduce heat to medium-low and add the meatballs. Coat the meatballs in the sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the vegetables. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add one tablespoon oil and allow to heat.
- Add in sweet potatoes once hot and saute for 2 minutes. Add the bell pepper and saute for 1 minute. Add the zucchini and saute for 2 minutes. All of the vegetables should be just tender and slightly crisp. Season with salt and pepper as desired.
- Evenly divide vegetable noodles into bowls, top with meatballs and extra curry sauce. Add a garnish of choice.
Equipment
Nutrition Facts
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000-calorie diet. All nutritional information is based on estimated third-party calculations. Each recipe and nutritional value will vary depending on the brands you use, measuring methods, and portion sizes per household.
Michele Hyson says
This is now my go to sauce to make with chicken/veggies! I love this meatball dish and usually make it with rice instead of noodles and add sauteed yellow squash and zucchini. It’s so great!
Jessica Gavin says
I love your side dish substitutions, I’ll have to give it a try!
Andrea L Kelly says
I hardly ever write reviews but WOW this was an excellent meal. I followed the directions with the exception of adding peanut butter to the sauce and omitting most of the syrup. Also, I fried the meatballs and cooked the spiral veggies in the meatball skillet. Thank you, my entire family loved it and all went back for seconds.
Stephanie says
Made this for dinner tonight- used ground chicken (ground myself- organic chicken breast and thigh mixture) instead of beef but no other changes. It was delicious!!!
Jessica Gavin says
Wow, that’s amazing that you ground your own chicken! So happy to hear that you enjoyed the meatball recipe 🙂
Steve says
This one is a new paleo favorite! I would also recommend using ground pork or chicken or just making the sauce and noodles with saute’d chicken (like Jessica’s orange chicken)! Thanks!
Jessica Gavin says
Yay! It’s definitely a satisfying grain-free meal. I love the idea of pork or chicken instead as a substitution for beef. You are a genius! 🙂
Steve says
I know!!! 😉
Marina Rapisarda says
Dear Jessica, now I have a great tasting go to sauce for almost everything.
Thank you , Marina P. S. I really appreciate the Science behind your recipes.
Jessica Gavin says
I’m so happy to hear you like the sauce Marina! Yes, it it very versatile and you can switch up the protein you make 🙂 I love sharing the science tips with my readers, so happy to hear you enjoy them!
Laura Plumb says
Jessica, This is gorgeous. Colorful, clean, and so appetizing. Can’t wait to try it! Thanks.
Jessica Gavin says
Thank you so much for the kind words Laura, that is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with my photography 🙂 Let me know what you think!