Three months ago, I sort of got this idea that if I were to add meatballs to my meal prep, then I can regulate the quantity of food for the day if I suddenly become more hungry.
If you need some protein when you make spaghetti, it is quite good to throw three to five meat balls in. These will make life and a single person easier.
The question is how easy it is to make them.
I did a couple of personal meal prep articles here on Investment Moats and if you are interested in these sort of stuff, you can check them out:
- Frugal Life – How I prep for 7 days lunch in half a day – 2016 Oct
- My late dad’s ingredient prepping – 2018 Jul
- Meal prep 2.0 – Cooking your go-to meal that you look forward to eating – 2024 Apr
What I will share today will add to this list and hope that some of you might find it interesting enough.
The Ingredients to Buy from Singapore Supermarket.
There isn’t a lot of ingredients.
If you like pork meatballs then you buy pork mince meat. If you would like to mix them up with chicken or beef, or those two, then you can buy those.
I tried to keep my simple by just buying the minced pork from NTUC, which is a Singapore supermarket:
One pack of this is 500g and cost about $4.50-$5.00. Pork is not cheap relative to chicken. 2KG cost $20 while 2KG of boneless chicken thigh cost $9.
I would usually make about 1KG or 2KG depending on my time available. I do find making 1Kg to be much more manageable between:
- The effort spend mixing the meat.
- Cooking the meat versus doing other things.
Aside from the meat, if you wish to put some vegetable like spring onion in your meat balls, that is something that you need to buy.
You would likely need 1 egg to make the mince meat mixture more sticky. I tend to put 1 egg per kg so if you are preparing 2KG that will be 2 eggs.
You would also need some spices and flavoring to make your balls nice:
I bought these two herb and spice from Foodie Market place in Outram. I think Foodie Market place sells a lot of stuff much cheaper than other places and while these two are a bit uncommon, the place sells it cheaper than other places. They are a mix of salt, and something else.
Other things that go down well are:
- Salt
- Five spices powder
- Sugar
One of the thing I really like was this dish call Bun Cha in Vietnam, which is basically some rice noodles with meatballs. But fxxk the meat balls is great. When I studied the ingredients (you can Google up how to make the meatballs for Bun Cha) I think one of the reasons it taste nice is sugar. Of course you put enough sugar, things will taste better.
I added some in because I still have enough in my fridge that I need to get rid off.
Defrosting The Meat
I would usually take the mince meat from the frozen compartment of the fridge and put at the bottom part to let it defrost two days before I need to do it.
Typically, it will defrost after two full days.
Marinating the Meat
Take the meat out, and put them in a large bowl:
I inherited this large metal bowl from my parents and it is perfect for doing this kind of shit.
Add in the egg, the salt, sugar and flavoring and mix well.
This part not rocket science.
The rocket science part is getting the amount of salt, and flavoring for 1KG of meat. I am still figuring that part out so I don’t think I want to recommend that to you. It will be worse than the financial advise I have given.
Then put the mixture in the fridge and let it sit for 2 hours. But… if you are rushing for time, I think you can just make the meatball immediately lah.
Making the Meatball and Air-frying the Balls
Once you are ready to make and cook the balls, bring the whole mix out.
Your job is to make the meat into balls:
Here is how they look like. Take some meat, roll it and hope that they are all uniform.
There is a good reason to make the balls uniform so that you know how many to take and how much protein you are consuming.
I got this electric kitchen scale that can measure in ml, g, kg. You can put a small plate like this on top and zeroized like what you see over here.
With this, you can ensure each ball weighs a certain weight.
I would usually prep each ball to be 40g.
I think you will get more accurate over time with how much meat you scoop in your hands as you do this more.
In the first picture, you will see some completed meat balls and some that are uncooked. It will be like this for the whole session.
Place a baking sheet (if you use an air fryer, buy those baking sheets meant for that in bulk from Shopee) below for easy washing later.
I suggest you don’t overcrowd by putting just the right number of balls. I put 9 each time.
Cooking instructions:
- Temperature: 200 degrees Celsius.
- First period: 8 mins
- Move or flip the balls around.
- Second period: 7-8 mins
I will let you decide on the second period in that if you are reheating them in air fryer when you want to eat usually, you might want to do 7 mins.
This is how the meat balls will look like when they are done. Notice that there seem to be some whites and that is because I put too much eggs initially and those are the egg whites. I suggest lesser.
- You can make 9 and let it cook.
- In the meantime, continue to make the rest of the balls.
- You would likely need to keep doing this for a period which means that you will be rather occupied.
- Only after you finish making the balls would it become easier.
- You can then have time to read some stuff, while waiting for 8 minutes.
Storing the Meatballs
I would put the meatballs in much glass lunch box initially, but I realize that if I need to use the lunch box, this isn’t too sustainable:
I can pack the meatballs in batches so that many can remain frozen and only a batch is defrosted.
If you buy uniform containers, they go into the fridge easily.
Eventually, I bought these stainless steel containers that is a tad small but allows me to further divide the batches.
I can then put them in the fridge.
Two days before I need to eat, or when they run out, I will move them to the bottom part of the fridge.
Warming the Balls
Since I would cook my chicken and eggs in the morning to bring to work, I would usually add the meatballs to the air fryer during stage 2 when I air fry the chicken for 7 minutes:
- Temperature: 200 degree celcius
- Time: 7 mins.
If you are not doing this together I think the following is better:
- Temperature: 140-150 degree celcius
- Time: 10 mins.
The Financial Numbers
Let us look at the numbers if we focus on making using 1KG of mince pork.
With that, you would usually make about 25-26 meatballs that weighs 40g each.
The stuff will usually come up to $10.35 and each 40g meatball will cost about $0.40.
Sometimes I will eat about 5-6 in a meal so that is like $2-$2.40.
My colleague Jaren was shocked that the meatballs cost so much. Pork is not cheap haha.
The Nutrition Numbers
Each 40g port ball will probably have 7g of protein.
A 51Kg person needs:
- Sedentary: 0.8g per K body weight = 51 x 0.8 = 41g
- Moderate: 1.2g = 51 x 1.2 = 61g
- Active: 2g = 51 x 2 = 102g
- Muscle Building: 2.2g = 51 x 2.2 = 112g
- Carnivore diet: 2.2g to 3g = 125g
If I am that half of the day’s protein comes from this, or about 40g for a moderately active person, then that will be 40g/7g = 5.7 pork balls a day.
That will probably cost like $2.40 for that meal alone.
Conclusion
I think some may ask why won’t you consider some ready prep food stuff and I think I would. If we do that and not meal prep first, there might always been that lingering question how much would the alternative cost.
And now we kind of have the answer.
Will mine taste better than the ready made ones? Maybe not, but I take solace I know what I put into it.
If you have 4 of these, they are equivalent to the cost of a meat at a Caipng store but the difference might be the Caipng store would not let you buy just this specifically. Meatballs are not the staple offering at Caipng places as well.
I take a look at Singapore online store Shopee about what they offer:
This Ah Ma Ngoh Hiang meatballs cost $7.50 for 10, with the total weight 280g. I think if it is my 40g ball it will cost $1.07 for one.
This home-made hand-fried meatballs cost $20 for about 15 pieces, weighing 420g. You will still have to put in your air fryer for 15 minutes at 180 degrees (that is probably something I should try and not 200 degrees!). If my math works out an equivalent of my 40g ball will cost… $1.90 each!
Well that is it for my post.
Let me know if you have better suggestions or questions to any part.
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Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.
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