Chicken Manchurian Meatballs

Have you ever tasted chicken Manchurian? This Indo-Chinese dish was a staple at Indian dinner parties when I was growing up. Chunks of chicken coated in a cornstarch batter and deep fried until crunchy and then tossed in a thick sweet and spicy sauce tasted like total heaven. This rich dish was such a treat growing up that I wanted to find a way that I could include all those flavors but in a lightened-up dish.

Instead of deep-frying battered chicken chunks, I roll ground chicken into meatballs, bake in the oven, and toss in a flavorful sauce to create my chicken Manchurian meatballs.

I love to serve these Manchurian chicken meatballs over cauliflower rice, steamed basmati rice, or with a side of broccoli.

When rolling out the meatballs, I like to use a medium sized cookie scoop. I’m also a bit type-A and usually way out my scoops of meat on a food scale to make sure they are all roughly the same size, as I find this helps with cooking the meatballs properly as well as tracking macros.

Chicken Meatball Ingredients

This recipe isn’t fussy, but it does have a few “specialty” ingredients that you may not have on hand. For the Chicken Manchurian sauce, you’ll need rice vinegar and chili-garlic sauce. I found both of these at my regular grocery store, in the Asian section, or you can pop over to an Asian market if you have one nearby, or grab them online.

Other than those two items, everything else is pretty standard.

How to make Chicken Manchurian Meatballs

You’ll start by adding your ground chicken into a large bowl. Add in chili-garlic sauce, soy sauce, minced ginger, brown sugar, scallions and cornstarch.

Mix with your hands until just combined. Using a cookie scoop, scoop meat and roll into little balls. I got 16 meatballs, each weighing about 33 grams.

Note: Mixture will be sticky, so I recommend wetting your hands with cold water as this will keep the meat from sticking to you.

Place Manchurian chicken meatballs on a lined baking tray, and bake at 400 degree for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the chicken Manchurian sauce. In a medium bowl, stir together tomato puree, chili-garlic sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Set aside.

To bring the dish together, put a large skillet over medium heat. Add in oil, and then ginger, garlic, onion and bell pepper. Saute until onion is translucent and everything is aromatic, about 5 minutes.

Add in the chicken Manchurian sauce and simmer for 1 minute.

In a small bowl, mix cornstarch and water.

Add to your sauce mixture, along with the baked meatballs. Stir until sauce is thickened.

Add in the rest of your scallions, and serve with your favorite side.

I hope you enjoyed this easy recipe for chicken Manchurian meatballs. If you try this recipe, leave me a rating below and let me know how it tasted!

Also, if you love Indian food and want to try your hand at making a healthier option at home, check out my Indian keema chicken recipe.