Carribean Spicy Mango Meatballs

 Any fruit can be added to these meatballs.  You could even do peach and then do a peach sauce.  These meatballs can be as spicy or mild as you want them to be. That is what is so great about this dish. This can be an appetizer or meal with carribean rice.

Ground beef and pork sausage can be mixed or used alone to make these meatballs. Flavored sausage can also be used, sage, maple, spicy.

Panko bread crumbs can be used instead of seasoned bread crumbs. Panko makes the meatball a little dryer. Use your favorite Hot Sauce, the amount is up to you for the heat that you want to bring to this dish.

I used frozen diced mango and chopped finer.

I cooked my meatballs in the oven on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.  You can brown off in a skillet before placing them in the oven. 

Use a cookie scoop to form meatballs so that each ball is consistent in size. You can also roll into balls, just make sure they are all the same size, so that they cook evenly.

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground pork sausage

1/2-1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

3 Tbsp Hot sauce

2 tsp paprika

Salt and Pepper

1-2 Tbsp butter

1/2 red onion diced small

1/2 cup chopped mango

Sauce

1 cup mango nectar

1/2 cup raw honey(any honey is fine)

2 tsp cornstarch

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix ground meat, bread crumbs, hot sauce, paprika, salt and pepper.  You can use your hands, set aside.

Sauté onions in butter just until limp. Cool 5 minutes. Mix with meat mixture along with mango. Scoop into meatballs and place on the cookie sheet, you might need to use sheets.  It is good to have some space in between each meatball.  

Bake for 12-15 minutes, test the core temperature to have it reach 160F degrees.

While the meat balls are baking, make the sauce.

In a heavy saucepan add nectar and honey and bring to a slow boil on medium heat, lower the heat to simmer. Mix the cornstarch with 1-2 Tbsp of water throughly until it is a white liquid.  Add a tsp of the hot nectar to the cornstarch mix until tempered then add all back into the saucepan, stir until well mixed. Let sauce come to a slow boil, turning up the heat again to medium, let boil 1 minute or until sauce coats the back of a spoon, remove from heat and be ready to pour over the meatballs after being transferred to a bowl.