What do you do when you have a craving for peanut sauce and the only thing you have in your freezer is a pound of ground beef? You make asian meatball satay with peanut Sriracha sauce, of course. This meal came together in a sort-of happy accident. I had decided to try making these meatballs on a whim, with the intention of serving them on a stick – just like a traditional satay – with peanut sauce, but the Sriracha was a last-minute dinner table addition.

I give all the credit to Marc for the idea because I’m not normally one to reach for the rooster sauce, but we were both less than wow-ed by how the peanut sauce had turned out. He suggested that we add the Sriracha to the sauce just to see how it tasted. I figured we didn’t have much to lose, so we did it. It turns out, it was exactly what the sauce needed.

The second time around, I added the Sriracha while I was making the sauce, and tried basting the meatballs as they were baking to give them even more flavor. It was a game changer. Both the meatballs and the sauce were to-die-for. Plus, they really don’t take long to make.

Serve the skewers on a bed of brown rice with a side of steamed vegetables for a full meal. Or, make a few batches as an appetizer for your next party. Just don’t forget to serve them with the extra sauce (and maybe a little extra cilantro if you love it as much as I do).