I have a new obsession.
And that obsession is Thai food.
It all started a few months ago when Seth and I ran in the Spartan Race that I talked a little bit about here, and afterwards went out to eat with his family at a Thai restaurant in Charlotte called Basil. So before eating at this delicious restaurant, I was under the impression that I hated curry with a burning passion.
Which still isn’t completely un-true, but it’s only certain curries that I dislike – pretty much any Indian curry. I am not giving up on loving Indian curry, though! I am hoping that some day I will try one Indian curry dish that I really enjoy and it will go from there.
So anyway, because I have always really disliked Indian curry, I assumed that I wouldn’t like any type of curry.
But while we were at the restaurant in Charlotte, I tried a few different Thai curries that his family ordered aaaaaaaaaaand they were the best things ever.
I would say at this point in my life, Thai red curry is my all time favorite food.
I am definitely planning on making a red curry dish and posting it on The Garlic Diaries, but the delay on that is a super long story that begins with me researching the most authentic curry brands for hours and ends with me accidentally having it shipped to our apartment in Georgia instead of here in Kansas….NOOO. Tears.
So since this revelation of my curry and Thai food LOVE, we have been cooking it a lot more and going out to eat at Thai restaurants pretty often, too.
New obsession with Thai food = birth of these delicious, flavorful, yummy-yummy-yummy lettuce wraps.
The meatballs are bursting with flavor from the garlic, ginger, scallions, fish sauce, lime, and sriracha that are mixed in with the meat, not to mention a spicy/sweet pop from the sweet chili sauce that lightly coats the outside of these scrumptious morsels.
These flavor bomb Thai meatballs are resting on a coleslaw, basil, mint, cilantro, scallion base that is dressed with a creamy, tangy rice vinegar based dressing.
Apologies for the puddle of drool that is now covering your computer/phone/tablet.
P.S. See that pretty wooden spoon that has been featured in two of these pictures so far? We just got a big fat check from our DITY move (when you move yourself in the Army without any help, they pay you – woop!). Most of it went into savings, but we each bought ourselves something nice with a chunk of it. I got these two new fancy shmancy wooden spoons that I could have never excused paying so much for otherwise.
Soooo I’m a little obsessed with them at the moment and will probably include them in any picture containing ingredients that can be stuffed into a spoon :).
I was/am probably too excited about them for normal social behavior.
#foodblognerd
#sorryimnotsorry
#toomanyhashtags?
#spoons!
It’s also photo bombing the bottom left corner of this picture :).
Enjoy, fellow Thai food lovers!
PrintThai Meatball Lettuce Wraps
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 5-6 lettuce wraps 1x
Ingredients
- For the meatballs:
- 1.5 pounds lean ground pork
- 4 scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon ginger, finely minced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sriracha
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons lime juice (1 – 2 limes)
- 1–2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce (for coating the meatballs once they are cooked)
- For the cole slaw:
- 1 14 oz bag cole slaw mix (the kind with regular cabbage, purple cabbage, and carrots)
- 10 basil leaves, rolled up and sliced
- 5 mint leaves, rolled up and sliced
- 3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
- 1 scallion, finely sliced
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 5 teaspoons light mayonnaise
- 4 teaspoons sweet chili sauce
- 1 head of iceberg lettuce or romaine lettuce (either will work for the lettuce wraps)
- Extra lime for garnish
- Extra cilantro for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees
- For the meatballs, mix all the ingredients except the sweet chili sauce in a medium bowl with your hands until evenly combined (the pork, scallions, ginger, garlic, fish sauce, sriracha, salt, and lime juice)
- Dampen a paper towel with some vegetable oil (canola or coconut oil works too), and wipe it onto a baking sheet to grease it
- Using about 1 heaping tablespoon of meat mixture each, form meatballs and place them on the baking sheet
- Bake the meatballs for 15 minutes or until they are fully cooked through in the middle, flipping once half way through with a spatula
- Meanwhile, make your coleslaw
- In a medium bow, combine all your coleslaw ingredients (the bag of coleslaw mix, basil, mint, cilantro, and scallions)
- To make your dressing, whisk together the rice vinegar, mayonnaise, and sweet chili sauce in a small bowl and pour over the coleslaw, tossing to coat
- Set aside until the meatballs are finished baking
- When the meatballs are done, transfer them to a bowl and toss with 1-2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce (they should just have a very light coating)
- To assemble, start with a lettuce cup, spoon in a pile of coleslaw, and top with three meatballs
- Top with a little extra cilantro (optional), and an extra squeeze of lime juice (highly recommended!)
- Note: if you don’t want to deal with the lettuce wrap (they can get a bit messy!), just serve the meatballs on a bed of the coleslaw, squeeze a little lime juice on top, and eat with a fork!
*This recipe is gluten free*
If you make this or any of my other recipes, be sure to Instagram it and hashtag #thegarlicdiaries!
Love lettuce wraps? Check this recipe out:
30 Minute Cashew Chicken Lettuce Wraps
Making these today, I’m sure they will be awesome! Where did you get the spoon? I love it!
Let me know how they are!! Thanks – it’s from a website called Earlywood – love that spoon!
I made this recipe today for myself and my husband and we both thought it was fabulous!!
So awesome to hear that, Alice! So glad this was a hit for you guys :).
So excited to try this recipe-love Thai anything. I have to ask where you got those spoons though. Love them.
Hi..I don’t eat pork..can I do it with chicken instead?
Hey Mimi! You could definitely use ground chicken instead of pork! You could use ground turkey too.
What to say about for today. It good.
★★★★★
Soooo delicious! Made these tonight for dinner and my family (husband and twin 12 yr olds) loved it. I tripled the recipe for leftovers and I have a few take-aways: 1-Careful with the salt. When the recipe is multiplied it was a little too salty which led to the next tip. 2-Add a little sweet chili sauce to pork mixture to balance saltiness. 3-Careful with the cooking time as the meatballs can dry out easily. I cooked mine for 10 min then broiled them for 2 min for added color and they were still a tad overcooked (at a tablespoon size). 4-The dressing for the slaw is very thin. I swapped lime zest for lime juice because of this. I would mix half the rice wine vinegar with mayo and add to your liking. I also added thinly sliced red pepper because why not? I usually have to coax my kids into taking leftovers for lunch but they requested it tonight and were asking when I was making this again. Love!
★★★★★
I’m so glad these were a hit with you and your fam, Diana! Thank you so much for the comment!!
This recipe is so good. I’m pretty sure my family is tired of me making it. Because it’s me, I’ve added more ginger, garlic, and a few spices, but it is literally delightful. Thank you for this recipe!
★★★★★
I’m so glad you and your family love this recipe, Abina! You are so welcome, and thank you for the comment :)!
Nomnomnom. Omg…so good. Used Thai basil and it totally made the whole thing. Also used beef as it was what I had around, but so so yummy. I’ll try it with pork next time and I’m sure it will be great, too! This is going into the rotation!
I’m so glad you liked it, Jubilee!! Thai basil is so dang yummy, it really does make a difference! I’m so glad this has made it into your meal rotation :).
Hi Annie! This looks amazing and want to try making. Do you have the calorie and carb facts on this recipe? Thanks!
Hey Anna! This was a little earlier on in my blogging career and I wasn’t yet calculating nutrition facts, so I don’t have them on hand for this recipe. Sorry about that! You could input it into a nutrition facts generator pretty easily, though! I use the one on myfitnesspal.com. I hope you try and love this recipe :).
I used an 85-15% fat pork and made my meatballs 30 grams per meatball. Without the sweet chili sauce they came out to 55 calories per meat ball. the slaw was 26 calories per 34 grams of slaw (the amount I put in 1 lettuce cup)
so for me each lettuce cup was 191 calories without the sweet chili sauce (sweet chili sauce is about 80 calories per 2 TBS which adds 4.5 calories to each meatball bringing your cup up to 205 calories each!)
Love this recipe – we’ve made it a bunch of times and it’s a favourite! Thanks!
One twist that we put on it – for less spicy but still full-of-flavour meatballs (for kids and other sensitive palates) swapping out the Sriracha for a mild Thai red chilli paste is awesome!
★★★★★
Yay! Love that this recipe is a hit for you! Great idea for the swap!
Hi Annie! I’ve been using this recipe as part of my 2 week meal planning since 2015. I skip the lettuce and just toss it all in a bowl most of the time, but it is my favorite meal ever! ☺️ Love your blog! It’s my go to, but this hands down has been my favorite recipe and in my constant rotation.
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Aw, yay! Thank you so much for the comment, Kiersten! Hearing stuff like this makes my day. I’m so glad you love this recipe! So much good flavor, right? Happy to be a part of your meal rotation :).
I only wish you make it so you can send this in an email format. I have several friends that I know would love this, but then I either have to copye and paste (then I lose my spot on Delish and have to start over again, or print it out and then retype it so I can email it to them (and myself).
Hey Carol! You should be able to copy and paste directly from my webite’s recipe. I haven’t used Delish, so I don’t know about that, but I just tested it from my own recipe card on the blog post itself on my website and it copy and pasted just fine!
Hey Carol! You should be able to copy and paste it directly from the recipe on my actual website. I don’t know about Delish because I haven’t used that, but if you are copy and pasting directly from the recipe card found at the bottom of my blog post on my website, it should work just fine! Another thing you can do is email your friends a link to the post so they can find the recipe at the bottom on their own computer, if that’s easier!
These meatballs look fantastic! Do you have any ideas for a chili sauce substitute? my guess is that most chili sauces would have sugar and I’m on a keto plan.
Thank you!!
This recipe had become a staple in my diet but I don’t do the chili sauce. I make a dipping sauce like they serve at PF Changs for their lettuce wraps. I use chinese hot mustard (no carbs), the garlic chili (no carbs), coconut aminos which (this has very few carbs), and a little soy sauce.
That sauce sounds super yummy, Stephen! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed this recipe :).
Hey Carolyn! Good question. Does keto allow for natural sugar like honey and maple syrup? I don’t know much about it. If it does, you could make your own sweet chili sauce using one of these natural sugar options. If it doesn’t you could probably just ditch the sweet chili sauce all together and either coat the meatballs in a different keto-friendly Asian sauce or just omit the sauce completely!
Anyone figured out the 21 day fix containers for this?
Debbie, this wasn’t created as a 21 Day Fix recipe, so I don’t have the container amounts on hand. I’m sorry! I bet it could be portioned into containers or maybe adjusted a bit to fit, though!
These were delicious. I think I’ll make the meatballs a little larger next time. It was hard to figure out how big to make them since the recipe doesn’t say. and it doesn’t say how many it should make either.
★★★★★
I’m so glad they turned out well for you, Moggy! The recipe says each meatball should be about 1 heaping tablespoon, and the recipe makes 5-6 lettuce wraps.
Do you have the calorie breakout?
This was before I did calorie breakdowns, Terra. I’m sorry!
The meatballs look great. Can’t wait to try them. You might try the recipe below. I’ve made it many times and varied the ingredients, like adding cilantro and using spinach leaves instead of the ones mentioned. It’s always a big hit a functions.
http://importfood.com/recipes/miangkham.html
Thanks, Margaret!
I was looking for a gluten free recipe for Asian Meatballs and stumbled onto yours. It is simple and really packed with flavor. The only thing I added was 1 egg white. They were awesome.
★★★★★
I’m so glad they worked out for you Stephen! Thanks for the feedback :).
These look crazy delicious! Pinned!!
Kristen @ The Endless Meal recently posted…How to Get Pinterest Rich Pins for Your Food Blog
★★★★★
Oh wow, these look amazing. Thai flavors are definitely our favorite, and I’ve made a ton of different Thai dishes at home. I am definitely going to need to try these! I love new healthy dinner ideas!
Jess @ Flying on Jess Fuel recently posted…Buffalo Chicken Chili
Thanks, Jess! Thai food is just so yum. Try this out for sure!
could you forgo making the meatballs and just combine all the ingredients and cook in a sauté pan?
I just made this….unbelievably good! And it came together surprisingly quickly and easily. I do wonder the same thing about just sauteing the meatball mix. If I try that next time, I’ll let you know how it turns out.
★★★★★
I’m so glad you liked it, Jennifer! I think sauteing the meatball mix would work perfectly for the lettuce wraps. The flavor would be the same! The meatballs are just fun to eat in lettuce wrap form, and the meat stays a little bit juicier ;). Let me know how it works when/if you try that new method!
Oh my goodness, Annie! Thai food is my favorite – I love everything about it! These meatball lettuce wraps are out of this world amazing! They look perfect!
Then you DEFINITELY need to try these, Kelly!! You will love them :).
I’m a Thai food and meatball lover! and these look and sound sooo good. Love the idea of meatballs on a lettuce wrap. Pinned!
Ana | Espresso My Kitchen recently posted…Easy Restaurant Style Salsa
★★★★★
Thanks for the pin! You will love them :).
Um, yum! These photos literally have my mouth watering! I haven’t really tasted much Thai food in my life but now I’m positive that needs to change!
Sam @ SugarSpunRun recently posted…Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles
★★★★★
It does need to change Sam!! Like…today :).
OH. MY. GOSH. I am so loving these adorable lettuce wraps. These are so full of AH-MAZING flavors. Drooling! :)
Thanks, Anu!
I am loving how healthy this recipe is.. and that slaw especially looks great. Yum!
Thalia @ butter and brioche recently posted…Chocolate and Espresso Pudding Cream Pie
★★★★★
Thanks, Thalia :).
These look amazing Annie! I love Thai food too- maybe a little too much. And gorgeous spoons!
Maya @ Treats and Eats recently posted…Aperol and Gin Cocktail
Thanks, Maya!
I’m obsessed with Thai food too! I can’t get enough of the amazing flavors. Can’t wait to make these lettuce wraps!
Natalie @ Tastes Lovely recently posted…Healthy Zucchini Bread
★★★★★
It’s soooo good! Thanks, Natalie!
I love anything and everything Thai and these sound amazing! Pinning to try sometime. Please thank your husband for his service!
Judy@ImBoredLetsGo recently posted…Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Me too, Judy. I’m a liiiiittle obsessed :). Thanks for the pin! Will do, thank you!
Yei letucce wraps!! I always have them at restaurants but for some reason never decided to make them at home. Your recipe is giving me that extra push!
Ana Fernandez recently posted…Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
Lettuce wraps are the best! You should definitely make them at home :). Super easy!
OMG! I LOVE Basil! I just had lunch there last week. Have you had the Basil Rolls? Yum! I love your spoons too! They’re so rustic. And these meatballs look to die for!
Really?? So jealous. Are those the ones that are fried? If so, then yes and they are the best things ever. Thanks, Rachelle!
Annie, these meatballs are EVERYTHING and then some! They look and sound incredible! The pool of drool covering my keyboard is so large I could go swimming in it (<— I might because I'm freggin HOT from moving boxes to their proper room #DamnMovers). I'm obsessed with Thai food, especially Thai red curry (#Gimme), meatballs and lettuce wraps soooo these are like the best thing in the whole wide world! aaaannnddd I can't wait to make them and shove them into my pie hole on repeat!
P.s- LOVE that spoon!
P.s.s- I am definitely checking out Basil in Charlotte!!
♡ Cheers, girl!
★★★★★
Thanks, Cheyanne! I bet you are sooo hot, NC is hot hot hot hot right now!
P.s – THANK YOU – it is so pretty.
P.s.s – you really really really really should.
Good luck with unpacking!!
thai food is the BEST – curries, soups, pad thai you name it.
your meatballs look so juicy and perfect! great idea for a lettuce wrap
Beverley @ sweaty&fit recently posted…ADIDAS #runmore x Sweaty and Fit
Agreed, Beverley! So so good.
These look great…especially in your new spoons! Love that you made these into lettuce wraps.
Kathy @ Beyond the Chicken Coop recently posted…Granola
Thanks, Kathy :). They are so pretty!
I am obsessed with Thai food since our trip to Thailand, so this is right up my street. We are big on lettuce wraps too, and had some with our tacos last night as well.
Dannii @ Hungry Healthy Happy recently posted…Comment on 5 Ways To Drink More Water by Dannii
I bet you had the BEST food on your trip! Yess aren’t they just the best?
Thai food is my jam, especially thai curry! These meatballs look so good, I can’t wait to try them! Also, love that you treated yourself to those beautiful spoons! That’s the sign of a true foodie :) My guilty pleasure is browsing all of the high end kitchen stuff a Williams Sonoma haha
Yessss it’s the best! Haha a sign of a true foodie for sure :). Ah, yes – Williams and Sonoma is my happy place, even though I can’t afford anything in that store haha!
Wowza! These Thai meatballs look incredible, Annie! I too love Indian curry. I am not a huge fan of Thai food but I think I need to do some taste testing like you did! Great recipe and gorgeous photos, too!
Julie | Small Green Kitchen recently posted…Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie (superfoods + vegan)
Thanks, Julie! I think you should do some taste testing too…starting with these meatballs :)!
Mmm these wraps sound amazing, Annie! I love the idea of adding meatballs to lettuce, especially ones that are thai flavored. Sounds so delicious!
Gayle @ Pumpkin ‘N Spice recently posted…Arugula and Prosciutto Almond Salad
Thanks, Gayle :).