Sometimes you feel a little spicy - let's kick up the heat with these wild game meatballs! Skillet spicy meatballs have all the heat inside, no extra sauce required.
I'm not always in the mood for spicy food, but when I am, these meatballs are a game changer. They don't rely on a spicy, tomato-based sauce, like when you make hot chili. Instead, all the spice is mixed up in the meat!
If you prefer things a little milder, check out some skillet sweet & sour meatballs - the perfect takeout replacement! I like to do a little freezer meal prep with a big batch of venison meatballs as well. There's also meatball's close cousin, venison breakfast sausage!
Key Ingredients
Ground meat - Any red meat, and any combination, will work well here. I prefer it over poultry due to the higher fat content.
Oats - I'm not about to buy special ingredients like oat flour, that's just silly for my kitchen. I go ahead and grind oats in the blender when I need to.
Liquid - Soy sauce and Worcestershire help hold things together and add a fair bit of salt.
Heat - We are bringing it all in here, with chipotle powder and smoked paprika.
How to Make Stovetop Spicy Meatballs
***See recipe card below for precise measurements and instructions.***
Step 1: Grind the oats in a blender until they are a fine flour.
Step 2: Add all ingredients for the meatballs to a large bowl and mix.
Step 3: Form into even sized meatballs. Melt the fat in a skillet and get to browning.
Step 4: Cook until done all the way through. At this point you can add sauce if you want.
Tips and Tricks
- I like red onion because it seems to add more heat. It just has that delicious bite that fits right in! But you can use any color onion that's in the garden.
- These are juicy from using red meat and adding grease to the pan, but you can add a splash of water toward the end if necessary.
- Don't crowd the pan at the start. Doing so will steam them more than brown them.
What to Serve with Skillet Meatballs
- You can see gnocchi in this photo, or try pasta. Tinkyada brown rice pasta is our favourite type!
- Mashed potatoes are perfect, as is rice.
- A nice big green salad, maybe with Caesar dressing.
FAQs
These include soy sauce, which does have gluten - but you can easily use tamari sauce or coconut aminos for the same flavour, sans gluten. Oats are also inherently gluten-free, but if you are serving someone super sensitive or with celiac, they will need certified gluten-free oats/flour as they are often cross contaminated with wheat. Just be mindful of who you are serving!
I've read that 1 cup of oats is about ¾ cup flour. Of course it all depends on if you are starting with quick or rolled and how far you process them. Because this isn't baking, you don't have to be super precise. If you are trying to use up that random bag of oat flour, measure out ¾ cup flour but don't add it all at once, just in case.
I generally use red meat, because it has a good blend of fat. It's also perfect when we are butchering our own hunting spoils because all the little chunks that aren't other "perfect cuts" get ground up, meaning we have a great blend of fatty bits and nicer meaty hunks. You can use beef, bear, moose, venison, etc. I just haven't used poultry.
Photos by Dante from Shire by the Sea
More Wild Game Recipes
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Spicy Meatballs
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons lard or bacon fat for frying
- 1 cup oats processed in blender as flour
- 2 lbs ground beef venison, or whatever you have on hand
- 1 red onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 ½ tablespoons sea salt
- 1 tablespoon chipotle powder or chili pepper powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 3 dashes Worcestershire sauce optional
Instructions
- Blend oats until turned into a fine flour.
- Mince garlic and chop onion into fine pieces.
- Combine all ingredients except lard thoroughly by hand or danish dough whisk
- Roll into evenly sized balls; I made 35.
- Heat fat in large skillet.
- Carefully place meatballs into heated skillet. If not large enough do in 2 batches.
- Brown meatballs on medium heat, cooking all sides by turning them with a large spoon, careful not to overcook.
- Place lid on skillet for 3-5 minutes to finish off batch if you want them a little bit more moist; you can add a few tablespoons of water if they need a bit more moisture.
Notes
- Serve over rice or noodles, depending on what you have or have a taste for.
- This works well with any red meat such as venison, beef, bison. I haven't tested with poultry and it might be a bit too dry here.
- Serve on a plate of your favourite pasta, top with sauce or just eat on their own as a satisfying dish.
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