Korean-Style Meatballs

Earlier this year, I shared a Vietnamese-style meatball recipe. Well, today, (as made obvious by the title of the post) I'm sharing a Korean-style meatball recipe. The two recipes are pretty similar but whereas the Vietnamese meatballs were seasoned with lemongrass and fish sauce, the Korean meatballs are seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger, quite like a typical kalbi marinade.

Ingredients [yields 1½ to 2 dozen meatballs]:
1½ lbs. ground beef (or ground chicken or ground pork)
1 egg
½ cup panko breadcrumbs
¼ cup minced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 scallion, chopped
¼ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon crushed pepper flakes

This is barely a post, as it is sinfully easy. Basically, just chuck all of the ingredients into a bowl and use your hands to gently mix all of the ingredients together until evenly combined. If you're worried about the seasoning, you can always take a tiny bit of the meatball mixture, cook, and taste to make sure it's good before you form your meatballs.

Form the meat mixture into meatballs. I like to use a cookie scoop to portion out the mixture so that I know each one will be the same size. Then, I use my hands to roll it around into a more rounded sphere.

Since this amount of meat mixture makes quite a large batch (between 18 to 24 meatballs - if you use a 1½ tablespoon cookie scoop), I froze most of these guys for future consumption. Basically, I left them on the sheet pan and then popped them in the freezer until completely frozen. Then, I popped the frozen meatballs into a ziptop baggie. This "method" of freezing ensures that the meatballs don't freeze together in one unmanageable mass. Frozen meatballs should be defrosted prior to cooking.

To cook, just pop the meatballs into a hot pan, turning every so often until golden brown. These guys are super savory and taste just like kalbi, except in meatball form. We had these as a banchan to supplement our chicken kalguksu.

Here's the recipe page: