Vegetarians are missing out. These Aisan flavored meatballs are fabulous!

I typically don't eat red meat; however the flavorful ingredients in this "Cooking Light Magazine" recipe spoke to me...garlic, green onion, chile paste...YUM!  And it seemed pretty easy too. Bonus.

The recipe is listed below.  I made THREE modifications:

1. Whole Foods didn't have ground sirloin, and the leanest ground beef they did have was 85% -- 15% FAT. Too fatty in my opinion.  So I combined 1/2 lb of this beef with 1/2 lb of 97% lean ground turkey.  Next time, I would use even more turkey -- 2/3 turkey and only 1/3 ground beef.  Ground chicken or pork would work for this recipe too.
2. I used 3 really big garlic cloves and 3 crushed garlic "cubes" -- Trader Joe's frozen crushed garlic that comes in "cubes."
3. I used about 1.5 T sesame oil vs. 2 T.

YUMMY SESAME SOY MEATBALLS

Serve these garlicky, spicy meatballs with steamed sugar snap peas and two cups cooked rice tossed with 1 tablespoon chile paste—you'll find it on the ethnic aisle of most supermarkets or at Asian grocers.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 5 meatballs

Ingredients
1/3 cup minced green onions
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil (see modification above)
1 tablespoon chile paste (such as sambal oelek)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 garlic cloves, finely minced (see modification above)
1 pound ground sirloin (see modification above)
Cooking spray

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400°.

2. Combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl. Add beef; mix gently to combine. With moist hands, shape beef mixture into 20 (1 1/2-inch) meatballs.

3. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of the meatballs to pan; cook 4 minutes, turning to brown meatballs on all sides. Arrange browned meatballs in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining meatballs.
Bake meatballs at 400° for 7 minutes or until done.

Nutrition (original recipe)

Calories: 241
Fat: 11.3 grams
Protein: 23.5 grams
Carb: 10.3 grams
Fiber: .3 grams
Iron: 1.9 mg
Sodium: 491 mg
Calc: 36 mg

** Meatball picture from Tofu for Two

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