Are you looking for a quick, easy and delicious beef koftas recipe? These Thai spiced beef koftas are exactly what you want, need and have been looking for in a kofta recipe for so long.
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Beef Koftas are one of those foods that require no real cooking skills to make and when you have a good recipe for them, life gets even more chilled out.
This recipe for beef koftas gets a bit of Thai treatment along with a few other little tricks I caught along the road from various other cuisines.
Basically we are taking Thai flavours. Mix them with some Meatball and kebab knowledge and voila! We get ourselves perfectly juicy and soft beef koftas.
Ingredients needed
This recipe for beef koftas requires a few very common ingredients you might already have in your pantry along with a few Thai ingredients very easy to buy in your local store.
- Beef mince - Get Good quality beef mince with a 30% fat content. If you want to grind your own use Beef chuck roll. It's got 30% fat.
- Bread - Normal white sandwich bread will do. I used some leftovers from this sourdough bread.
- Water - normal drinking tap water
- Curry paste - Make your own massaman curry paste or just use a well know store-bought brand like Mae Ploy.
- Fish sauce - Use a good natural brand of fish sauce.
- Soy sauce - Use a naturally brewed soy sauce.
- Cilantro - Fresh as a daisy.
- Lime leaf - Get fresh or frozen.
- Rice - Any long grain rice like basmati or jasmine.
- Oil - Neutral smelling oil like canola or sunflower.
- Seasoning - Salt and pepper as usual.
Amounts in recipe card.
How to make it
Making these beef koftas are extremely simple and require very little to no skill.
- Start by boiling some rice. If you have some leftover rice this is a perfect opportunity to use it. Once cooked make sure it cools down completely.
- Soak the bread in water until fully soft and hydrated.
- Mix together all of the ingredients including the rice and bread in a large mixing bowl making sure it's all one evenly distributed mass.
- Oil your hands very slightly and form 100g logs like pictured above. Keep them on a baking tray with parchment.
- Before cooking chill them down well in the fridge for 10 -15 minutes.
- Heat a cast-iron skillet or BBQ if you're doing it outside. Fry until very well browned on all sides on medium-high heat. If you're doing this on the BBQ then I suggest you put the mix onto flat metal grilling skewers after chilling down and grilling afterwards.
- When cooked, the temperature should read 63C on a temperature probe.
Variations
You can use this Kofta recipe as a base and modify parts of it to yield lots of other tasty results.
- Meat - Change the beef for lamb, chicken, prawn or pork.
- Curry Paste - Use any other curry paste like massaman, green curry, or just use spices instead like in this Persian lamb koftas recipe or even this Georgian adjika.
- Rice - Substitute the rice for something else like quinoa, brown rice or bulgur.
- Herbs - Change the chopped cilantro for mint, parsley or chervil.
How to make this recipe gluten-free and Keto friendly
Remove the bread, water and rice. Replace with more meat. The resulting koftas will be a bit denser but meatier of course. Take care not to overcook them.
Replace the soy sauce with its weight in fish sauce. Otherwise, use tamari or gluten-free soy sauce.
Sides to serve it with
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Recipe
Thai Beef Koftas
Ingredients
- 600 g (1 ⅓ lb) beef mince - 30% fat
- 50 g (⅕ cups) bread
- 100 g (3/7 cups) water
- 150 g (1 cups) cooked rice
- 30 g (2 tablespoon) red curry paste
- 20 g (1 tablespoon) fish sauce
- 10 g (4/7 tablespoon) soy sauce
- 4 g (⅔ teaspoon) salt or more if you like it saltier
- 30 g (2 ⅐ tablespoon) neutral-tasting oil plus some for frying
- 15 g (1 cups) chopped cilantro
- 10 (10) very finely chopped lime leaves
Instructions
- Start by boiling some rice. If you have some leftover rice this is a perfect opportunity to use it. Once cooked make sure it cools down completely.
- Soak the bread in water until fully soft and hydrated.
- Mix together all of the ingredients including the rice and bread in a large mixing bowl making sure it's all one evenly distributed mass.
- Oil your hands very slightly and form 100g logs like pictured in the post. Keep them on a baking tray with parchment.
- Before cooking chill them down well in the fridge for 10 -15 minutes.
- Heat a cast-iron skillet or BBQ if you're doing it outside. Fry until very well browned on all sides on medium-high heat. If you're doing this on the BBQ then I suggest you put the mix onto flat metal grilling skewers after chilling down and grilling afterwards.
- When cooked, the temperature should read 63C on a temperature probe.
Notes
- Meat - Change the beef for lamb, chicken, prawn or pork.
- Curry Paste - Use any other curry paste like massaman, green curry, or just use spices instead like in this Persian lamb koftas recipe or even this Georgian adjika.
- Rice - Substitute the rice for something else like quinoa, brown rice or bulgur.
- Herbs - Change the chopped cilantro for mint, parsley or chervil.
- Remove the bread, water and rice. Replace with more meat. The resulting koftas will be a bit denser but meatier of course. Take care not to overcook them.
- Remove the soy sauce with its weight in fish sauce. Otherwise, use tamari or gluten-free soy sauce.
Rach says
These are amazing! Thank you so much for the recipe. It is so unique and so flavorful! We can't wait to try this again!