Vegan Hoisin Meatballs

good meat-free vegetable balls are given a good asian twist with these Vegan Hoisin Meatballs – great as a main dish or as an appetizer! 200 calories per serving and under 17 grams of fat make these a deliciously healthy choice.

At Avdaye, we add lots of tips in all of our recipes – because we are a home cook without any formal training, and we find we are more confident making dishes when we understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. Our goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

Meaty Vegan Hoisin Meatballs

We know what you are thinking.

Seriously, we do.

VEGAN? MEAT FREE? WHYYYYYYY?

We mean, if we could eat nothing but bacon and cheese around the clock, we probably would. We'd be 900 pounds and gloriously happy, thank you much.

But there are times we do actually enjoy eating vegan (we are Orthodox Christian, and participate in fasting periods where we do vegan, most notably for advent and Lent), and there are times when we've been eating like crap for weeks and something lighter sounds good.

But let's face it- eating vegan food should also taste good.

Because who wants to eat cardboard? And really, couldn't broccoli taste a little bit more like bacon?

Luckily, these vegan hoisin meatballs have all the flavor of good, meaty asian meatballs- with none of the actual meat.

They also are soy and grain free- making them extremely low calorie and a great way to pack in lots of vegetables in one serving.

The funny thing about these “meat”balls is they look meaty.

Some meat-replacement foods look weird and alien-like (which, let's face it, they kind of are)- but these have a nice brown color and lots of real texture to them- because they are made with browned vegetables and some nuts.

No weird ingredients! good real food. Because really, isn't that what it's all about?

also check out these insanely easy and good BBQ Vegan Meatballs (which as an added bonus, are totally whole 30 and paleo diet compliant!):

We've seen some paleo hoisin sauce recipes around (they use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce), but we haven't tried any of them, so we're not comfortable linking to one yet. But when we do, we will update this recipe!

You can also make these with a teriyaki sauce or with any other sauce you love to top over meatballs for a good, rich flavor! If you are sticking to a certain diet, double check your sauce to be sure it doesn't break the rules! Most diets will work into the actual meatball recipe, however.

If you have a nut allergy- you can entirely omit the walnuts (we like them for extra protein), add in some grains as a binding agent, or add in some beans or chickpeas.

Vegan Hoisin Meatballs Recipe

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Ingredients

• 2 tbsp grapeseed oil
• 1 bell pepper, any color, diced
• 1 eggplant, skin on, diced
• 1 zucchini, diced
• ½ cup walnuts, diced fine

Method

1. Set a baking sheet out with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large pan, heat grapeseed oil until shimmery.
3. Add in diced bell pepper, eggplant, walnuts, and zucchini.
4. Sautee until browned, about 15 minutes – stirring regularly to prevent burning.
5. Remove from heat and let cool about 5 minutes.
6. Add to vitamix blender with tamper and grind until soft- making sure to use tamper to stir mixture. It should be a small, soft texture but not liquified.
7. Remove mixture from blender and put into a large bowl.
8. Take ¼ cup mixture and roll into a tightly packed ball.
9. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheet.
10. Continue rolling balls until you've made them all.
11. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, until a deep brown. This step helps the meatballs “set”, so don't skip it!
12. At this point, you can remove your meatballs and freeze them for another use.
13. If eating immediately, place meatballs in a pan with a drizzle of grapeseed oil over medium heat.
14. Brown on all sides, about 8 minutes.
15. Add hoisin sauce, stir well.
16. Let sauce heat up- about 2 minutes.
17. Remove from heat and serve immediately!