Potsticker Pork Meatballs
This recipe for Potsticker Pork Meatballs has everything you love about potstickers – ground pork seasoned with ginger, garlic, and scallions – in a meatball noodle bowl with a silky, savory sauce. It’s the pork meatball recipe for those of us who love pork potstickers but don’t have time or energy to make them from scratch.
I’ve literally spent years working off and on getting these pan-fried potsticker meatballs to be perfect. Read on for detailed tips to making them as easy or complicated as you like. Or just grab your ground pork, hit that purple Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make this potsticker pork meatball recipe for dinner tonight!
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Ingredients
Traditional potstickers are made with ground pork, chopped cabbage, green onions, ginger, and garlic. They’re usually served with a sauce made of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and a bit of heat.
And that’s pretty much what you’ll find in this potsticker meatball recipe:
- Ground or minced pork. I use ground pork for a lot of meatballs I make all the time, including my shrimp and pork meatballs, jalapeño cranberry meatballs, and this BBQ chicken meatballs subbing ground pork.
- Finely chopped ginger and garlic. The green cabbage stays out of the meatballs so you don’t have to chop it super fine.
- Wide noodles like pappardelle stand in for the potsticker wrapper, and I’ve included the best method I’ve found for getting them to crisp up like potsticker bottoms without sticking to your pan!
- Finally, the pork meatballs braise in a soy and rice vinegar sauce.
Please see the recipe card below for complete information on ingredients and quantities.
Substitutions and variations
- Feel free to add a few extra veggies to the dish. Think bok choy, snap peas, or shredded carrots.
- This is a great dish for making hand-pulled noodles if you’ve got extra time on your hands!
Recipe tips and tricks
If you want some general tips for making meatballs, this is a good start. I love all meatballs.
I’ve been working this potsticker meatball recipe to get the noodles to mimic the bottom of a pan-fried dumpling. If you skip crisping some of the noodles, you can save some time and dishware. You might even be able to make it a one pot pork meatball recipe like my turkey meatball Stroganoff.
The most efficient way to make the recipe is to heat the water to boil for the noodles, and start to make the pork meatball mixture. Chop the garlic, ginger, and green onions for the whole recipe, and divide into what you need for the pork meatballs, sauce, and garnish. I usually have a large bowl going for the meatball mixture and smaller bowls to prepare the sauce at the same time.
When the water comes to boil, salt the pasta water liberally, add the baking soda and cook per the package directions. Adding baking soda is a recommendation from Kenji Lopez-Alt to make pasta noodles taste springy and chewy like Asian noodles, but be careful – this froths up quite high.
When al dente, drain and toss the noodles with a bit of sesame oil. It’s ok to cook the noodles ahead of time, because they’ll reheat when you toss them into the potsticker sauce.
To crisp up some of your noodles, put about a quarter to a third into a small bowl and toss with cornstarch. Chop or tear into bite sized pieces – this helps them crisp evenly – and cook them in a single layer on parchment paper. A high temperature gets them crisp and not dried out and tough.
Note: I tried a bunch of times to fry these noodles in a pan and mostly ended with them stuck to the bottom. True potstickers!
Cooking the pork meatballs
The potsticker method gives the pork meatballs a bit of a crust before they finish cooking in a braise in the rice vinegar and soy sauce mixture. Cook the meatballs in a large pot to have room to toss the noodles – I use the pasta pot to save on cleaning.
Heat a tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add the ginger, garlic, and green onions designated for the sauce and cook about a minute or two until fragrant.
Add the pork meatballs and cook until a deep golden crust forms on one side, two to three minutes. Give the pot a stir and let another side brown for a few minutes. Then add the chopped cabbage and rest of the sauce ingredients, cover, and cook until the meatballs are cooked through, about 15 minutes, depending on the size of your pork meatballs.
When the pork meatballs are fully cooked, add both sets of noodles, and toss gently to coat the noodles with the sauce. The mixture should thicken a bit with the remnant cornstarch on the noodles.
Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve your potsticker meatball noodle bowl hot, garnished with the reserved green onions and with sesame oil and chili crisp or hot sauce on the side.
Recipe FAQs
I go for a steamed green vegetable, but you can check out a bunch of other ideas here for what to serve with meatballs.
If you want to prepare parts of this potsticker noodle bowl ahead of time, I would suggest creating the meatball mixture. You could even boil the noodles to just shy of al dente.
Leftovers of this potsticker pork meatball bowl can be refrigerated for a day or so, but any longer and the noodles will become mushy. This recipe unfortunately will not freeze well.
Related meatball recipes
Check out some of my favorite easy meatball recipes from the archives, including:
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-heart 💜💜💜💜💜 rating in the recipe card below. Let me know how much you loved it, or any problems you had, in the comments section further down.
Recipe
Potsticker Pork Meatballs
Ingredients
Pork Meatballs
- 1 pound ground pork
- 2 green onions 4 in total, finely sliced, white parts for sauce, dark green for garnish
- 3 cloves garlic 6 in total, minced, divided between meatballs and sauce
- ½ tablespoon fresh ginger 1 tablespoon total, grated or minced, divided between meatballs and sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt skip if using full salt soy sauce
- ¼ teaspoon Szechuan pepper or black pepper
Noodles
- 1 pound pappardelle or other dried wide noodle
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil plus more as needed to prevent sticking
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
Potsticker sauce and finishing
- 1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil
- 2 green onions 4 in total, finely sliced, white parts for sauce, dark green for garnish
- 3 cloves garlic 6 in total, minced, divided between meatballs and sauce
- ½ tablespoon fresh ginger 1 tablespoon total, grated or minced, divided between meatballs and sauce
- 2 cups Napa or green cabbage chopped
- ½ cup soy sauce
- ½ cup rice vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt omit if using full salt soy sauce
- ¼ teaspoon Szechuan pepper or black pepper
- toasted sesame oil for finishing, optional
- chili crisp or sriracha for serving, optional
Instructions
- Start by setting a large pot of water to boil and heating your oven to 450℉. Ready a large bowl for the meatball mixture, and, if you like, two small bowls for mise-en-place.
- Add the ground pork to the large bowl. Thinly slice the green onions and reserve the greenest third in a small bowl for garnish, the whitest bottom bits in a bowl for the sauce, and the middle third to the ground pork. Mince the garlic and ginger and divide equally between the ground pork bowl and the bowl with the white scallion bits. Add the remaining meatball ingredients (soy sauce, salt, and pepper) and gently mix the pork meatball mixture. Roll into meatballs using about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of mixture.1 pound ground pork, 2 green onions, 3 cloves garlic, ½ tablespoon fresh ginger, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, ¼ teaspoon Szechuan pepper or black pepper
- When the pasta water comes to a boil, add a generous amount of salt and two tablespoons of baking soda – be careful, will froth! Cook the pappardelle according to package directions, drain, and toss with a thin coating of sesame oil.1 pound pappardelle, 2 tablespoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- Add about a quarter to a third of the cooked pappardelle to a separate bowl and toss with the cornstarch. Rip or cut the noodles to bite sized pieces, place on a parchment-lined baking sheet (to prevent sticking) and bake until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes.2 tablespoons cornstarch
- While the noodles are crisping, heat a tablespoon of oil in your pasta pot over medium heat. Add the contents of the bowl with white scallion bits, ginger, and garlic and cook a minute or two until fragrant.1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil, 2 green onions, 3 cloves garlic, ½ tablespoon fresh ginger
- Add the meatballs and cook until a deep golden crust forms on one side, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir once or twice, browning other sides of the meatballs.
- Add the chopped cabbage and stir in for a minute or so, then add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, salt (if using), and pepper. Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pot, and let the meatballs braise in the liquid until fully cooked, about 15 minutes.2 cups Napa or green cabbage, ½ cup soy sauce, ½ cup rice vinegar, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon Szechuan pepper or black pepper
- When the meatballs are fully cooked, add the noodles to the pot with the potsticker meatballs. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve in bowls, garnished with the reserved green onion tops, and with sesame oil and chili crisp or sriracha on the side.toasted sesame oil, chili crisp or sriracha
Notes
Nutrition
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