SPICY LOVAHS THIS IS FOR U.
You know how every once in a while you get on a spicy kick? Well, it’s really every day for me… Siete jalapeño hot sauce on my eggs in the morning. Habanero cheddar on sandwiches. Jalapeños on pizza (and in everything). You name it, I’m adding a kick of heat. I even did the Hot Ones Challenge (IYKYK) and you can watch it HERE.
Anyways, these firecracker chicken meatballs were one of my ‘craving spicy food during the weeknight’ creations from years ago. They’re packed with jalapeño, cayenne, and hot sauce for firecrackin’ heat. They also have a little sweetness from coconut sugar and pineapple coconut rice so that the meal is well-balanced. Everything pairs so beautifully together that I guarantee you’ll be licking your plate clean. Let’s get to it!
Ingredients in firecracker chicken meatballs
These sweet & spicy chicken meatballs are packed with delicious spices and a few bright veggies. You’ll need:
- Meatball base: I used 93% in this recipe so that they’re still juicy. Feel free to use lean ground turkey as well. You’ll mix the meat with egg and panko bread crumbs to help them stick together. See below for a grain free & gluten free option as well!
- Meatball mix-ins: you’ll add finely diced onion, cilantro, and jalapeño for a kick of heat, flavor and moisture, plus your favorite hot sauce (I love Sriracha or Cholula), soy sauce, coconut sugar, and a blend of cozy spices.
- For the rice: I recommend jasmine or basmati rice. Do not use brown rice as it will take too long to fully cook. You’ll simmer the meatballs and actually cook the rice right in the coconut milk for a wonderful, creamy flavor.
- Produce: the meatballs will cook with sweet, juicy pineapple and red bell pepper, then get topped with fresh cilantro and scallions to finish the dish.
Can I make this dish gluten-free or grain-free?
- To make gluten-free: use gluten-free bread crumbs OR 2-3 tablespoons of coconut flour in place of the breadcrumbs. I recommend starting with 2 tablespoons to see if your meatballs hold together well and if you can easily shape them into balls.
- To make grain-free: follow the gluten-free instructions above and then use cauliflower rice instead of regular rice.
Try new fruit & veggies
Feel free to experiment with your favorite fruits and veggies! I think mango would be delicious in place of the pineapple, and broccoli would be a great swap or addition to the bell pepper (you’ll just need to add it to the skillet earlier to cook).
How to cook chicken meatballs in coconut milk
I love cooking these firecracker chicken meatballs in rich coconut milk because they stay super moist and soak up all of the flavors in the coconut milk.
- Mix the meatballs. Add all of the meatball ingredients to a large bowl and use clean hands to mix and form into 16 golf ball-sized meatballs.
- Brown the meatballs. Heat olive oil in a large deep oven-safe skillet or braiser. Brown the meatballs on all sides, then transfer them to a plate. You may need to do this in batches to fit the meatballs, but no need to cook them all the way through as they’ll finish in the sauce.
- Simmer the rice. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add in the coconut milk and pineapple; stir in the rice and bell pepper, then add the meatballs back in and bring to a nice simmer.
- Cover & bake. Cover your pan and bake until the meatballs are cooked and the rice is nice and fluffy.
- Garnish & serve. Remove from the oven, garnish with fresh herbs and hot sauce, and enjoy!
Make them ahead of time
These firecracker chicken meatballs can easily be prepped ahead of time!
- Simply mix and form the meatballs then place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper then tightly cover the meatballs with plastic wrap and place in the fridge until you are ready to cook them.
- You can prep these meatballs up to 1-2 days ahead of time.
Storing tips
If you’re going to meal prep these firecracker chicken meatballs, I recommend storing them in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. Yes, you can store them with the sauce + rice! To reheat simply place your meatballs and sauce in the microwave for 30-60 seconds.
Freezer-friendly chicken meatballs (2 different ways!)
- Bake first, then freeze: place your meatballs and sauce in a freezer-safe, airtight container or bag and freeze it all for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to enjoy, let your container of meatballs + sauce thaw in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight, and then empty the contents into a pan on the stovetop. Heat them in your pan until they’re nice and warm, and then serve!
- Freeze before baking: you can also freeze these meatballs before cooking them! Form your meatballs as instructed, place them on a baking sheet, and put them in the freezer for 1-2 hours. This is called a flash freeze. Then, transfer your frozen meatballs to an airtight, freezer-friendly bag or container and place them in the freezer for up to 3 months. To thaw them, simply place them in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight and then cook them as directed in the recipe.
More meatball recipes you’ll love
- One Pan Cilantro Chicken Meatballs in Mango Coconut Sauce
- Herby Chicken Meatball Pitas with Jalapeño Tzatziki
- Sheet Pan Jalapeño Pistachio Chicken Meatball Bowls
- One Pan Baked Pesto Orzo with Chicken Meatballs
- Greek Turkey Meatballs with Lemon Orzo & Creamy Feta Yogurt Sauce
Get all of my meatball recipes here!
I hope you love these firecracker chicken meatballs! If you make this recipe, be sure to leave a comment and rate the recipe below. You can also snap a photo and upload it to Instagram with the hashtag #ambitiouskitchen. Enjoy, xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
One Pan Firecracker Chicken Meatballs with Pineapple Rice
Ingredients
- For the meatballs:
- 1 pound 93% lean ground chicken (or lean ground turkey)
- 1 egg
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs (if GF sub gluten free panko breadcrumbs)
- 2 green onions, very finely diced
- ⅓ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 jalapeño, seeded and finely diced
- ½ tablespoon hot sauce of choice (I love Sriracha, Cholula or Green Tabasco)
- 1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce (or tamari or coconut aminos)
- 1 ½ tablespoons coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon cayenne
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- For the rice:
- 1 ½ cups jasmine or basmati white rice (don’t use brown rice, it will take too long to cook)
- 1 (15 ounce) can coconut milk (full fat or lite will work)
- 1 ¾ cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup heaping cup frozen or fresh pineapple chunks
- 1 red bell pepper, julienned
- ¼ cup finely diced cilantro
- For garnish:
- Sliced green onion (green part of green onion only)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, add the ground chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, hot sauce, soy sauce, coconut sugar, cumin, garlic powder, paprika, cayenne, salt and black pepper. Use clean hands to mix and form into 16 golf ball sized meatballs.
- Place a large dutch oven (or 3.5 quart braiser) over medium-high heat and add in olive oil. Add the meatballs and brown on all sides, about 5-6 minutes total. You may need to do this in batches, depending on how many meatballs you can fit in your skillet without overcrowding them. When meatballs are done browning, transfer to a plate and set aside.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add in the coconut milk, chicken broth and pineapple; stir in the rice and bell pepper until evenly coated, then add the meatballs back in, increase heat to medium high heat and bring to a nice simmer.
- Cover the pan, transfer to the oven and bake until the rice is tender about 25 minutes. Remove from oven, add cilantro over rice and meatballs. Serve immediately. Garnish with scallions and serve with hot sauce.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
This post was originally published on August 8th, 2020, republished on July 20th, 2024, and republished on March 23rd, 2025.
No enough binder. these meatballs fell apart. What a TERRIBLE recipe.
Sorry to hear that. Most of the reviews are positive on this one so I’m surprised! How lean was the meat you were using?
Can I use fresh, yellow mango instead of pineapple?
Sure!
This is one of my favorite recipes! I found that the most time-consuming part was chopping the ingredients for the meatballs themselves, so I triple the recipe (I use 2 of Costco’s 1.5 lb packs of ground turkey) and bake all the meatballs on a full sheet pan. Then I use 16 for that night’s dinner and freeze the other meatballs in 2 separate bags for easy prep next time. So flavorful and easy.
Amazing! Great way to meal prep and save time 🙂
We love this recipe in our family! Quick easy dinner!
One of our favs, too!
This is such a delicious recipe! So many flavors in one bite. Have made this one a few times now. Perfect for winter days when you’re dreaming of summer. 🙂 Monique is one of my favorite chefs to follow. Her recipes are always a hit. Go buy her cookbook!
So happy to hear that! I hope you’re loving the cookbook 🙂
I made these for dinner tonight. So good! I didn’t change anything and my husband and son went back for seconds. Honestly, I’ve made so many of your recipes and never had a miss! Thank you!
I made these for dinner tonight. So good! I didn’t change anything and my husband and son went back for seconds. Honestly, I’ve made so many of your recipes and never had a miss! Thank you!
Forgot to give star rating!
I’m so glad everyone loved it!
Delicious recipe. The coconut and pineapple in the rice gives a delicious flavour. The rice is so moist that you don’t even need an additional sauce.
So glad you enjoyed! The flavors in here are incredible 🙂
As a lover of coconut rice, I was so excited to try this recipe! I did follow it word for word but felt like the final dish left much to be desired as far as flavor goes. The meatballs were great by themselves, as was the rice, but the combination (even with extra garnishes and sriracha) felt like the flavors cancelled out one another. I love the idea of this recipe but feel like it could use some tweaks to really bring it home. Unfortunately, I don’t know what I’d recommend for those tweaks, but I do think this could become a stellar recipe!
Sorry to hear that! I’m not sure what I’d tweak, as I always find that the rice and meatballs complement each other perfectly!
Loved the flavor of the meatballs! But mine would not stay together 🙁
So glad you loved the flavor but I’m sorry they wouldn’t stay together. I recommend once you mix and roll them, gently placing just a few onto your pan at first (be sure not to overcrowd) to cook on side and then wait about 3 minutes before rotating them so that once they’re cooked on one side they’ll maintain their shape a bit better 🙂 Hope this helps!
Hi! Is there a way to find the original recipe? The new version that requires transferring to the oven is a little more temperamental than the original instructions. Still very tasty though —just a little different and longer to make.
Hi! Yes, I’ll have it emailed to you 🙂
Quick question! Did you change this recipe to include finishing it in the oven? I always thought the whole thing was done on the stovetop before.
Yes! I found the new method to make these even better. I’m happy to send you the old version if you’d like — feel free to email [email protected]!
I prefer the old version of this recipe which I wish you would also post. There is no way to contact you so I would put this here..,love your recipes but your website has become unusable…can’t even stay on the recipe it constantly jumps to another section…I know you have to make money on ads but this is ridiculous…please fix this issue so more people can use this site..
Hi Jill! So sorry to hear that this is happening. Please feel free to email [email protected] for any more detailed recipe questions. You can also click the “print recipe” button to access a printable, ad-free version of the recipe if you’d like!
This recipe was delicious! But the calorie count for four servings seems off
Glad you enjoyed! And thank you for the catch – we’ve made tweaks to the recipe and I’ve updated.
I have made this on repeat but not for a while…I do not remember having to put it in the oven. Can you do the whole thing on the stove top without the oven bit?
Hi Tracey! I recently updated this recipe to make it even better (and based on reader feedback), but yes, you can cook it completely on your stovetop instead of baking it at the end.
This was delicious, and easier than expected. I think 4 servings is off in my household, where it would feed 6-8. Next time I will scale down the rice portion somewhat to make it more manageable. A salad would be great with this and balance the very tasty rice.
We loved this weeknight dinner recipe! I added additional veggies (green beans and extra bell pepper) to the pan and sauteed some onion before adding the veggies/rice and it turned out wonderfully. So much flavor in the rice and minimal dishes! Will make again 🙂
So good! Glad you enjoyed 🙂
Delicious Monique! The only thing I would do differently next time is add some salt to the coconut rice mixture prior to adding in the meatballs. The coconut rice was a little bland. Thanks for another yummy recipe.
Yes feel free to bump up the flavor with salt to taste! Glad you enjoyed 🙂
Hi Monique, I love this recipe, so flavorful and delicious. You make it all look so easy and most times it is! Thank you for that.
I am prepping meals and freezing them for when my grandson is born, trying to make it easy on his parents. Do you think I can freeze this with the rice or freeze the meatballs on their own?
I will be prepping and freezing many of your delicious recipes for them as you are my go to!
Thank you so much!
Hi Karen! That’s so thoughtful – they’re going to love having quick meals. Yes, I think this should freeze well with the rice! Check out my big freezer meal guide here, too 🙂
One of my all time AK favorites! Was this recipe recently edited? I thought I always remembered cooking the whole thing on the stove top rather than in the oven.
So glad you love this one! Yes, I tweaked this slightly to make it even more delicious (and taking feedback from readers into account!)
Excellent Flavor. This will be a regular meal in our household!
I made this dish last year and it’s absolutely delicious. I’ve made it several times. I used ground turkey. It’s an explosion of flavor in your mouth. Always shake up your coconut milk before you add it that way it’s nice and creamy. I have always used fresh pineapple in this recipe. I’m excited to make this again tonight! Thank you for sharing your recipe. =)
So happy to hear that! One of our fav one pan meals 🙂
I was really trying to like it but I just did not at all. The rice burnt on the bottom of the pan despite there being more than enough liquid and the stove being on a low setting. I was able to get rid of the burnt parts and salvage most of the rice but it lacked depth of flavor and same with the meatballs. I followed the recipe exact except I left out the jalapeno so my 1 year old could eat them. As I was making it it seemed like it would be delicious but it just fell really flat. Two stars because my husband covered it in spicy Japanese bbq sauce and said it tasted really good.
So sorry to hear that! I’m not sure why the rice burned on a low settings – did it look like a lot of it settled to the bottom of the pan after you stirred it in? As for the flavor I’ve always found the spice blend to work really well, but if you ever try it out again you could increase the salt to help bring the flavors out more!
These meatballs lacked structure and fell apart when cooking. Flavor was excellent, however.
Skip the broccoli.
The rice just stuck to the pan. I would highly suggest cooking rice in coconut milk separately in a rice cooker. You can add the red pepper the last 10 minutes or so.
The meal was a jumble and I will be cleaning my pan for another hour.
Sorry to hear that! The combination of egg and bread crumbs should hold the meatballs together perfectly (I use that in all of my meatball recipes). Make sure when you add the rice that it doesn’t all go to the bottom – it might require a gentle stir before simmering it.
I was SO excited to make this, and it did not dissapoint! I used lite coconut milk which I’m only mentioning because there seems to be some discourse about it. I did make two small changes: I had to double the panko because my meat mixture was way too loose to form balls. This was fine and they were still nice and juicy. I also sprinkled the bell pepper onto the whole thing at the beginning of the rice simmer time. I wanted it to to be nice and soft and this worked great for me, and it still looked pretty much exactly like the picture. I am a single person cooking for one, so this made two portions for now, and two for the freezer for handy meals later (froze cooked meatballs and rice together). Great recipe!
Amazing! So happy you loved this one!
This was absolutely delicious! So flavorful. And that coconut rice = chef’s kiss.
Just wondering, though, if there’s a way to do this in the oven? Our meatballs were a little smaller and took forever to brown; would be so much easier to chuck it in the oven! just don’t know temp / time … TIA!
One of our fav dinners, too! The meatballs won’t quite get that brown “sear” in the oven, but you could bake them for about 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees F before adding them to the skillet to finish cooking with the rice.
This recipe is unbelievable! The combination of sweet and a little spice is so so so good! Yum yum yum
Such a great dinner!
Recipe sounds delicious, I admit I hating people post a review when they haven’t made the recipe, but I cook, and I can tell this will turn out good. When I personally make it. I’m going to substitute half coconut water for the light coconut milk. And I want to let everyone know that if you want to make this with brown rice but keep the cooking time the same, you can use sprouted brown rice (soaked overnight and then sprouted for 3 days), because sprouted brown rice is the same cooking time as white rice.
Thanks so much, hope you love this recipe!
Absolutely delicious and full of flavor!! I’ve made it multiple times already!
Excellent! I am so glad you’re loving this recipe, Alyssa ❤️
Could you bake the meatballs while you do the rice? If so, what temp and how long?
That’s what I did for mine! I baked them at 350 for 12 minutes and they came out great.
Sure! I would bake them for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees F 🙂
These are fantastic! I had to improvise a little because I didn’t have white rice, but I partially cooked some brown jasmine rice for about 20 minutes before adding it to the recipe and it worked perfectly. I used a jalapeño lime hot sauce for the meatballs that worked great with the other flavors. Just like all your meatball recipes, it’s a winner!
Yay! I am so glad you are enjoying this recipe and it turned out great for you!
One of my absolute favorite AK meals to make! So tasty, unique, and hearty!!! Love the combo of pineapple with the coconut milk in the rice, soooo good!
YAY I’m so glad you’re a fan. Thanks, Callie!
I made this last night, and it turned out delicious! I like a lot of heat, so I added an extra jalapeño and red pepper flakes to the meatball. You may want to consider doubling the rice if you’re a rice fan. We felt like we could have had more for the table. I only found 13.75oz cans of coconut milk, so I did adjust down slightly. Super flavorful and just different than most things we’ve tried at home!
So glad you loved it! And yes feel free to add more rice or make some for the side as well 🙂
Wow! This recipe is incredible!! I’ve made it twice this past week for two dinner parties and it was a huge hit!! The flavor is soooooo good. The spicy meatballs and the sweet, creamy rice are the perfect combination!
My only addition was a drained can of diced.green chilies to the meatball and squeezed one full lime into the rice. It was terrific without it but I just wanted to use up those items and this worked perfectly with them.
The rice did take longer to cook than it said it would for me, but might just be my stove.
Overally, it was just DIVINE!!! For sure one of my go-to staples now. Fairly easy and quick to make and it was bursting with flavor. So glad I randomly picked this recipe. Thank you Monique!!!
Love that! So happy it was a hit! One of our favs, too 🙂
I love this recipe! I like spicy so I usually add some extra sriracha on top for serving. My only suggestion as a pineapple lover is to use canned crushed pineapple instead of pineapple chunks for a more diffuse pineapple flavor.
Happy you love it!! And that sounds delicious 🙂 It’ll add more moisture so you may need to cook it for a bit longer!
Not a fan of pineapple in savory foods. Could
I use something else to balance out the dish?
Hmm how about mango? If not, you could probably just leave it out (but I love the balance of savory/sweet that it adds!)
This recipe is easy and incredibly scrumptious. We’re so grateful for this nutritious, amazing taste experience. Thank you!
I made just the balls to have on hand for the week/in the freezer and they are FAB! Definitely going to be a house staple.