Indian Meatball Curry

This delicious Indian Meatball Curry combines my favorite curry recipe with tender meatballs. It's a healthy and easy to make dinner recipe that is easy to fall in love with.

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Meatballs and curry together at last! That's right, my friends. What we've got here is an Indian Meatball Curry and it is delish.

I've started by tweaking my Easy Butter Chicken recipe then spiced up some meatballs with curry flavor. Those two simmer together till they become a rich and tasty dinner.

This is one of those dinner recipes that is easy to serve when you've got people with different diets sitting at your table. I'm pointing the finger at myself here as I'm toying with the idea of doing The Whole30 Program again.

When I served this at dinner a few nights ago, my handsome man and my dad spooned their curry over heaping plates of basmati. I ate mine with cauliflower rice, cause I'm a bit of a weirdo.

READ MORE: How to make cauliflower rice

These meatballs:

Did you see that meatball up there swimming around in the curry? I've never put the word beautiful in front of balls before, but that's what's going through my mind. → And if you can't hear the word balls without your mind heading in a totally not meatball direction, then we're kindred spirits.

For this recipe, I went back to those Lemongrass Vietnamese Meatballs I shared last year and tweaked them so they're Indian. It's one of my fav meatball recipes as it's so flavorful.

I toned down the flavor a bit as I didn't want them to compete with the curry, but even on their own, these meatballs are still delicious. Make sure to mince the onion, ginger, and garlic until they're almost a paste. This will help keep the meatballs tender.

Want to know another trick for making tender meatballs? Don't pack them tightly. You want to use a gentle hand and avoid really squishing them together. Easy does it, my friends!

This curry:

One of my fav recipes on this blog is my Easy Butter Chicken. I used that same recipe as a base recently when I made us the Cashew Butter Chicken. It's super versatile and can easily be tweaked to use in different recipes. Like this one!

It starts off with a simple Indian marsala – that fragrant combination of well-cooked onion, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, and spices. I like to put it in my blender so that it turns extra creamy. Once you make that delicious gravy, you simply add in some almond butter and some cream, yogurt, coconut milk, or cashew cream.

You can use whichever you have on hand and best suits your diet. I've tried all the options and they're all delicious.

READ MORE: Crockpot Butter Chicken

Favorite curry recipes

• Mango Chicken Curry
• Cashew Coconut Salmon Curry
• Creamy Coconut Chicken Curry
• Creamy Coconut Lentil Curry
• Easy Butter Chicken

Indian Meatball Curry

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 20 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 40 minutes mins

This delicious Indian Meatball Curry combines my favorite curry recipe with tender meatballs. It's a healthy and easy to make dinner recipe that is easy to fall in love with. It's also naturally gluten-free + paleo and can easily be made Whole30 compliant.

If you love this recipe as much as we do, let us know with a 5-star rating!

4.78 stars (40 ratings)

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Ingredients

• ¼ cup oil
• 2 medium onions, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 inch piece of ginger, minced
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon each: cumin and coriander
• 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
• ¼ cup plain yogurt, cream, coconut milk, or cashew cream (see notes)
• 2 tablespoons almond butter or tahini
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• Optional: 2 tablespoons brown or coconut sugar, omit for Whole30

The Meatballs

• 2 lbs. ground beef, or ground pork, or ground lamb, or a combination
• 2 tablespoons each: very finely minced ginger and onion
• 1 tablespoon each: sea salt, curry powder, and fish sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced

Instructions 

• Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until well caramelized, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, and spices and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and scrape any stuck on bits off the bottom of the pan.
  2 medium onions, 4 cloves garlic, 2 inch piece of ginger, 2 teaspoons curry powder, 1 teaspoon each: cumin and coriander, 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
• Transfer to a blender and add 1 cup of water, the cream, almond butter, sea salt, and if you're using, the sugar. Blend on high until smooth.
  ¼ cup plain yogurt, cream, coconut milk, or cashew cream (see notes), 2 tablespoons almond butter or tahini, 2 teaspoons sea salt, Optional: 2 tablespoons brown or coconut sugar
• While the onions are cooking, make the meatballs. Add all the meatball ingredients to a large bowl. Using your hands, mix the meat well. Form into 12 balls, being careful to use a light hand and not to pack the balls tightly.
  2 lbs. ground beef, or ground pork, or ground lamb, or a combination, 2 tablespoons each: very finely minced ginger and onion, 1 tablespoon each: sea salt, curry powder, and fish sauce, 4 cloves garlic
• Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and cook, turning occasionally, until well browned all over, about 15 minutes.
• Pour the curry from the blender into the skillet with the meatballs. Bring to a simmer then reduce the meat to medium-low, cover the pan, and cook for 15 minutes. If the curry gets too thick, add a little extra water to the pan to thin it.
• While the curry is simmering, take this time to make some rice or cauliflower rice to serve it with.

Notes

If you want to keep this dairy-free, use either canned coconut milk or cashew cream. To make the cashew cream, blend 1 cup of cashews with 1 ½ cups of water in your high-powered blender. You will have more than you need and can use the extra in this Dairy Free Tomato Cream Sauce or Not Yo Mama's Pork Chops and Mushroom Soup.

Pair with steamed basmati rice or cauliflower rice

Serving: 1 serving = ¼ of the recipe, Calories: 606kcal, Carbohydrates: 28g, Protein: 56g, Fat: 31g, Saturated Fat: 7g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 6g, Monounsaturated Fat: 17g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 142mg, Sodium: 3689mg, Potassium: 1661mg, Fiber: 7g, Sugar: 13g, Vitamin A: 461IU, Vitamin C: 25mg, Calcium: 189mg, Iron: 9mg

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