These sweet garlic meatballs, with their irresistible sweet and savory flavors, are sure to become a new favorite in your recipe collection! Ready in just 30 minutes using your favorite meatballs!
These cocktail meatballs put a delicious twist on a classic cocktail meatball appetizer. The combination of garlic honey meatballs and a savory soy-mirin sauce make these an irresistible treat for family dinners, big game day, holidays, or a casual party. Sure to become a new staple in your recipe collection!
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A few notes about ingredients
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and quantities.
- Meatballs. Make your own our use a pre-made, fresh, or frozen cocktail meatball. We keep these meal prep turkey meatballs in the freezer to save time.
- Mirin. This is a Japanese rice wine with a slightly sweet flavor. It is similar to sake but usually less expensive, a little sweeter, and with a lower alcohol content. It works great in glazes and sauces. You can find mirin in most grocery stores in the United States.
- Staples. Honey, brown sugar, and soy sauce round out the ingredients for our sauce.
Meatballs
Use your favorite meatballs, homemade or store bought, in this garlic meatball recipe. Lean ground beef, ground chicken, ground turkey, ground pork, or a combination of them all works great! A 2-3 teaspoon sized cookie scoop is the perfect size for a 1-inch cocktail meatball. Make them bigger or smaller depending on your event and how you are serving them.
Love cocktail meatballs?
Try one of our other favorite meatball recipes.
Brandy Meatballs
How to make cocktail sweet garlic meatballs
We start by making honey glazed meatballs and then toss them with a sweet and savory soy-mirin sauce. So easy and quick to prepare.
Baking meatballs
Place your unbaked meatballs in a baking dish (image 1). Bake for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and add the honey (image 2). Stir well to coat the meatballs with the honey (image 3). Continue baking until meatballs are done (image 4). NOTE: if you are using a pre-baked meatball, toss the meatballs with honey and heat in the oven until warm (image 2-4). Then continue with the remaining recipe steps.
Make sauce
While the meatballs are baking, make your sauce.
Combine all of the sauce ingredients; minced garlic, soy sauce, mirin, and brown sugar, in a sauce pan (image 5). Place on the stovetop over medium heat and heat until it begins to boil (image 6 & 7). Reduce heat and gently simmer until the sauce has thickened (image 8). Set aside until ready to combine with the meatballs.
Once the honey glazed meatballs are done baking, carefully remove the pan from the oven. Gently pour sauce over the meatballs, stir until meatballs are coated. Serve warm.
Make ahead of time tips
If making your own meatballs, make them ahead of time. Pre-bake them or store them unbaked in an airtight container in the refrigerator, up to 5 days, or in the freezer up to 2 months. If frozen, thaw completely before continuing with recipe.
Make the meatball sauce up to 3 days in advance and keep in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to heat and serve the meatballs. If pouring cold sauce over cold, pre-cooked meatballs, place baking dish in the oven to heat the sauce and meatballs before serving.
REMEMBER: If using a glass or ceramic dish
- do not place the cold dish into a hot oven
- do not pour a cold liquid into a hot dish
the temperature difference can cause the dish to break
Favorite riffs
If you can't find mirin use dry sherry, sweet marsala wine, rice vinegar, sake, or a dry white wine.
Substitute honey for the brown sugar in the sauce.
Make meatballs any size you want. These are great as a cocktail meatball on a party buffet but would be equally good a little bigger served as an entrée over steamed rice or noodles. If serving as an entrée we recommend doubling the sauce.
How to serve sweet garlic meatballs
Serve as an appetizer
We want all appetizers to stay at a food safe temperature and these meatballs are best served warm. We recommend serving these appetizer, honey garlic meatballs in a chafer, crockpot, or in a heat safe dish on a warming tray.
After serving cocktail meatballs at hundreds of catering events, we found if served with a spoon, guests will eat MANY, MANY more than if we serve them with a pick. We like to use a reusable toothpick, but recognize if you are hosting a large party this may not be feasible. For large parties use a decorative toothpick when possible - like a bamboo knotted toothpick. These are found at most party stores, some grocery stores, or restaurant supply stores.
NOTE: We do not recommend using colored toothpicks
as the color can come off on the food.
Place a dish of picks next to the warm meatballs. We like shot glasses to hold our clean picks. Place a few picks in the meatballs, so people see how to serve them, and continue to do so throughout the event as meatballs and picks are removed.
Here are a few of our favorite pick sources.
- Wooden toothpicks - Least expensive and easy to get
- Knotted bamboo toothpicks - Inexpensive and easy to get at many locations
- Metal cocktail pick - Most expensive option but reusable!
- Bamboo w/’pearl’ - Step up from basic pick and available at Amazon
Serve as an entrée
Make a larger meatball and serve this dish as an entrée with steamed rice or noodles and some vegetables. We recommend doubling or tripling the sauce recipe if serving over rice or noodles.
SAVING LEFTOVERS
The FDA recommends discarding any perishable food that has been out at room temperature for more than 2 hours.
If you are within the FDA recommendations, these sweet garlic meatballs will last in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Rehead on the stovetop, in the microwave, or in the oven until warm.
Other favorite cocktail meatball recipes
It depends on the meatballs used. If the meatballs and soy sauce are gluten free then this dish is gluten free. To be sure, confirm the actual brands you're using are gluten free.
We like a 1-inch cocktail meatball made with a 2-3 teaspoon sized cookie scoop. Make them bigger or smaller depending on your event and how you are serving them.
Tough question! It depends on what else you are serving, what type of party it is, how you serve them (with a spoon or picks), and the time of your event. In general, people LOVE these meatballs and eat a lot. If this is a super bowl party with lots of snack-y food, people will graze on them for hours - serve in a slow cooker or chafer to keep them warm - and plan 2-3 per person per hour. If this is a Christmas party with lots of hearty foods, people will probably eat 4-5. At the catering company we would always double or even triple the amount we thought we'd need because they were so good. We always recommend making more than you think you need, they will be eaten and are great the next day!
📖 Recipe
Sweet Garlic Meatballs
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 24 meatballs 1x
Description
These sweet garlic meatballs, with their irresistible sweet and savory flavors, are sure to become a new favorite in your recipe collection! Ready in just 30 minutes!
Ingredients
- 24 small meatballs, uncooked (try our favorite Meal Prep Turkey Meatballs)
- 3 Tablespoons honey
SAUCE
- 2 teaspoons garlic, minced (about 3 large cloves)
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 Tablespoon mirin
- 3 Tablespoons (42 grams) brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
MEATBALLS
- Spread uncooked meatballs in a baking dish and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove the baking dish from the oven and toss the meatballs with the honey until well coated.
- Return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes until the honey is starting to caramelize a little and the meatballs are cooked through.
SAUCE
- While meatballs are caramelizing in the oven, combine garlic, soy sauce, mirin, and brown sugar in a medium-sized skillet and heat over medium-high heat until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes at a low simmer.
- Remove the baking dish from the oven, pour the sauce over the caramelized meatballs, and stir until completely coated.
- Serve.
Notes
Meatballs. We keep these turkey meatballs from our friends at Life As A Strawberry in our freezer to save time. Use your favorite homemade or pre-made, fresh or frozen meatball for this recipe. If frozen, thaw before using. For a cocktail meatball, use a 2-3 teaspoon scoop to form small, 1-inch meatballs. If serving as an entrée with rice or noodles, make them larger (and double the sauce).
Serving. We recommend serving as appetizers in a dish to keep them warm. A chaffer, warming dish, or heat safe dish on a hot plate will all work. We like adding a few toothpicks to the meatballs in the chaffer so people understand how to serve them. Place additional toothpicks in a small container, like a shot glass, next to the meatballs. NOTE: THESE ARE GOOD! When we have served these with a spoon people consistently eat 2-3 times more than when we serve them with toothpicks. Plan accordingly!
Substitutions. Use brown sugar instead of honey in the sauce. If you don't have mirin, use a dry sherry, sake, rice vinegar, or a dry white wine.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 meatballs
- Calories: 93
- Sugar: 7.6 g
- Sodium: 309.7 mg
- Fat: 2.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 8.7 g
- Protein: 8.3 g
- Cholesterol: 26.1 mg
Mike says
Had some frozen meatballs that I needed to use and this was a hit for game night. Barely had to prep! Only reason this doesn't get full 5 stars is because I love the Brandy Meatballs here even more, adding to my party snack list for sure.
Rhonda says
So glad these were a hit! We agree it's hare to beat the Brandy Meatballs, but think these come in a very close second!