Pork and quinoa balls with sweet chilli sauce

Serves:

Serves 5

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup black quinoa
• 1 cup (250ml) stock
• 500g lean pork mince
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 2 spring onions, finely chopped
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• vegetable oil spray
• 3/4 cup (180ml) sweet chilli sauce

Method

Place quinoa and stock into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Turn the heat down as low as it will go, cover and cook quinoa for 20-25 minutes or until cooked and the liquid has been absorbed. Cool quinoa completely.

Heat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced) and line an oven tray with baking paper.

Mix half the cooled quinoa with pork, garlic, ginger, spring onions and egg.

Roll about one tablespoon of mixture in your hands to form a meatball and place on the oven tray. Continue with the rest of the mixture.

Place the tray in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until meatballs are golden and cooked through. Serve either hot or cold with sweet chilli sauce.

Serving Suggestions

Note

• You only need half the amount of cooked quinoa for this recipe but I find that if I try to cook quinoa in quantities smaller than ½ cup I run into trouble and can’t get it right – either too dry or too wet. Keep the rest for a salad or a healthy omelette or anywhere you would use rice.
• I’ve used black quinoa for this recipe but you can certainly use white or red. Cooking times may vary with different colours. White tends to cook quicker than black I’ve found so just keep an eye on it.
• If you’re packing these for lunch make sure you put a freezer block alongside them to keep them cool.
• Why not pack these in a lunchbox with some cherry tomatoes and vegetable sticks for a lovely healthy lunch.
• If you are looking for fresh flavours then this Quinoa tabouleh uses quinoa in place of burgul.
• You can also use quinoa for texture like we have in this Crunchy quinoa salad.
• You can use quinoa as a crumb coating like we have in these Quinoa calamari rings.
• You can even sneak quinoa into a burger like we have in this Quinoa cheeseburger with barbecue onions .
• You can make some Quinoa popcorn chicken  instead of going out for fast food.
• You can use quinoa in our Salad in a jar to make your salad more satisfying.
• You can even sneak quinoa into a smothie like we have in this Strawberry quinoa smoothie.
• Quinoa can be used as porridge like in this Quinoa and apple porridge.
• Nutritional value per serve: 1075kj (256cals); 7g total fat (2.5g saturated fat); 0.8g fibre
• This recipe was created by Jay Rogers for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder. You can follow Jay at The Moodie Foodie and on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.