Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Dinner in Under 30 Minutes

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Sweet and Sour Meat­balls is the next recipe in my meat­ball series. Guys, these are SO good! Deli­cious spicy meat­balls, chunks of pineap­ple and crisp, fresh veg­gies coat­ed in a sim­ple, home­made sweet and sour sauce. Serve over your favorite vari­ety of rice and in less than 30 min­utes you have a meal you’d be proud to serve to company. 

If you missed the first post, “Meat­balls, Scrump­tious, Savory and Oh So Easy”, you’ll want to check it out. That orig­i­nal post teach­es you how to use my favorite meat­ball recipe to make 126 meat­balls in about an hour. That’s enough for around 5 meals, for a fam­i­ly of six. The post includes instruc­tions for freez­ing them, too, so you’ll be able to use them in all the oth­er great recipes, like this one.

If you’re look­ing for anoth­er deli­cious week­night fam­i­ly din­ner, you’re gonna love this recipe. With your pre-made meat­balls, it can be on the table in under 30 minutes. 

The sweet and sour sauce only requires 6 com­mon pantry ingre­di­ents. Add meat­balls and the veg­gies of your choice. Serve Sweet and Sour Meat­balls over rice and you’ll have cre­at­ed a tasty Asian-style din­ner that will zoom to the top of your fam­i­ly’s favorites!

Ingredients You’ll Need for Sweet and Sour Meatballs

• frozen meat­balls (Get my Meat­ball recipe.)
• canned pineap­ple chunks
• brown sug­ar
• corn­starch
• soy sauce (or coconut aminos)
• beef stock
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• veg­gies of your choice (I used bell pep­pers, cel­ery, red onion and zucchini)

How to Make Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Pull 24–30 meat­balls out of your freez­er stash. They don’t need to thaw. Just have them handy, since the recipe goes togeth­er quickly.

Start the sauce by dump­ing the pineap­ple into a 12″ cast iron skil­let and turn­ing the heat on to medium. 

In a small bowl, whisk togeth­er the beef broth, soy sauce and the lemon juice and zest. Don’t heat this, yet. It needs to be cold, to dis­solve the corn­starch in.

Add the corn­starch to the liq­uids in your bowl and con­tin­ue whisk­ing until the corn­starch is com­plete­ly dis­solved. Then, pour the mix­ture into the skil­let with the pineap­ple and stir to com­bine. It will begin to bub­ble and thick­en in just 1 or 2 minutes.

Now, toss the meat­balls into your sauce and turn the heat down to low. Let the meat­balls and sauce sim­mer long enough for the meat­balls to be heat­ed through (about 10 minutes).

Add the fresh veg­gies to the skil­let, stir to make sure every­thing is even­ly coat­ed and con­tin­ue to sim­mer anoth­er 2–5 min­utes. Cook long enough for the veg­eta­bles to be hot and to allow them to get to your desired degree of tenderness.

How to Serve Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Serve Sweet and Sour Meat­balls over your favorite rice: white, brown, wild or even cau­li­flower. (For the fastest meal, I start a pot of Minute Rice imme­di­ate­ly after adding the meat­balls to the sauce. The tim­ing is per­fect for it to be done, just as the meat­balls are ready to serve.)

I’ll bet you had no idea meat­balls could be so ver­sa­tile and a great time-saver when mak­ing week­night sup­pers. Be sure to check out Meat­balls in Brown Gravy, too. It’s a com­fort food dynamo! 

Enjoy some time, this week­end, cook­ing and shar­ing a meal with your fam­i­ly. Laugh, enjoy con­ver­sa­tion and make some mem­o­ries. Be blessed, Friend!