These succulent Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs are an addictive mix of savory and sweet, with a wonderfully tangy punch of pineapple. Serve as appetizers, or part of a delicious meal.
Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs are flavorful and tender bites, covered in a rich and delicious sweet and savory sauce. You can whip up a big batch of these in no time! This makes for a such a hearty and delicious main or appetizer.
Why you’ll love these Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs
- A delicious sweet and savory sauce. Ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar and pineapple make for a rich and addictive sauce that’s sweet, savory, salty and tangy.
- Versatile. This recipe serves up a big batch of meatballs, they’re great as appetizer or serve them on rice for a delicious main.
- An easy meatball recipe. Just 15 mins prep the sauce and the meatball, then into the oven – done!
- Healthier meatballs. These meatballs are made with ground chicken and baked, not fried, so a healthier twist on the classic beef meatball.
How to make these Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs
Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the full recipe
- In a bowl mix with the ground chicken, with onion powder, salt, pepper, garlic, ginger, panko crumbs, onion and pineapple. Then form into 1.5 inch balls, place on a sheet pan and bake for 20 mins.
- While the meatballs cook, make the sauce. Mix the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl, then heat and stir until thickened.
- Remove the meatballs from the oven, add peppers and pineapple chunks as well as the sauce. Cook for another 20 mins.
- Garnish, serve and enjoy!
A homemade Hawaiian teryaki sauce
This homemade, Hawaiian teriyaki sauce is amazingly addictive and utterly simple to make, you can whip it up while the meatballs cook. Made with soy sauce, pineapple, garlic, ginger and brown sugar, it’s got a depth of flavor that’s as good as (if not better) than take out!
This baked meatball recipe is sweet, salty and savory, with a lovely pineapple tang – so good.
A hearty main or appetizer
Whether it’s a game day appetizer or a weeknight meal, these succulent chicken meatballs or equally at home as party food or as dinner.
Pop a toothpick in them for feeding the crowd or serve on a bed or rice or quinoa for a hearty main!
Baked Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs
These Hawaiian meatballs are baked at a high temperature so they are wonderfully crispy on the outside and perfectly succulent on the outside. The baking ensures and even cook and allows the sauce to really marry up to the meatballs!
Make it easy
You could use bottled teriyaki sauce to save time.
More Top Tips
- This is great served over rice. I used basmati rice.
- You should have about 1 ¾ cups of pineapple juice.
- This made 24 large meatballs. I like to make them big because I’m lazy and get tired of rolling them. If you prefer smaller meatballs, adjust the cooking time accordingly.
- The meat mixture is pretty wet and sticky when making the meatballs, but they stayed together nicely when cooking and tasted great!
Other delicious meatball recipes
- Creamy Chicken Meatballs
- Curry Chicken Meatballs
- Butter Chicken Meatballs
- Asian Chicken Meatballs
- Italian Wedding Soup with Chicken Meatballs
- Chicken Parmesan Meatballs
- Italian Baked Chicken Meatballs
Have you tried these Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs? Feel free to leave a star rating and I’d love to hear from you in the comments below
Baked Hawaiian Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 ½ cup panko bread crumbs
- 6 minced garlic cloves divided
- 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons minced ginger divided
- ½ cup red onion minced
- 2 eggs
- 2 cans pineapple chunks
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 cup + 1 ½ tablespoons brown sugar divided
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 red pepper cut in chunks
- 1 green pepper cut in chunks
- sesame seeds and green onions for garnish
Instructions
- Drain pineapple chunks, reserving juice. Finely chop enough pineapple to make ½ cup. Squeeze as much juice out of the chopped pineapple as possible. Set the remainder pineapple chunks aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix ground chicken, onion powder, salt, pepper, 3 cloves garlic, 2 teaspoons ginger, panko crumbs, diced onion, and chopped pineapple.
- Form chicken mixture into 1 ½ inch balls and place on sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Cook at 375℉ for 20 minutes, turning after ten minutes.
- While meatballs are cooking, prepare sauce by mixing reserved pineapple juice, soy sauce, 3 garlic cloves, and 1 tablespoon ginger in a small saucepan. In a small bowl, stir together 1 cup brown sugar and cornstarch. Heat pineapple juice mixture until boiling and stir in brown sugar and cornstarch. Stir until thickened.
- Place cooked meatballs in a greased 9×13 pan and top with pineapple chunks and red and green pepper pieces. Pour sauce over everything and return to oven for 20 minutes.
- Garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds.
Notes
- This is great served over rice. I used basmati rice.
- You could use bottled teriyaki sauce to save time.
- You should have about 1 ¾ cups of pineapple juice.
- This made 24 large meatballs. I like to make them big because I’m lazy and get tired of rolling them. If you prefer smaller meatballs, adjust the cooking time accordingly.
- The meat mixture is pretty wet and sticky when making the meatballs, but they stayed together nicely when cooking and tasted great!
Sally says
Read the recipe carefully bf u make it. It was poorly written. It tells you 2 eggs in the ingredients but forgets them in the directions and certain ingredients are divided so make sure u divide those. Also it says 1 cup 2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar divided but then it doesn’t tell you what your dividing it for bc it says mix the 1 cup with 1/4 corn starch and add it to the sauce. I thought it was too sweet using that much sugar anyway. Maybe it meant to add the half of it into the meatball mix. I messed up the recipe due to the way it was written and my meatballs were not tastey.I also forgot to add the red onion into the meatball mix. I forgot to add the eggs bc it didn’t include it in the directions. I think if I tweaked it and didn’t mess some things up it could have tasted better. The sugar was overwhelming.
Jenny says
I added the eggs, saw that they were left out in the instructions. These turned into mush. I also dropped the brown sugar to 1/2 c and sugar was still overwhelming. Will not be making these again. 2 lbs of ground chicken ruined.