How to Make Bakso, Indonesian Meatballs

These bakso, or Indonesian meatballs are fairly easy to make and so handy to have in the freezer to use in stews, noodles or even for your barbecues.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Indonesian Bakso

What is Bakso?

Bakso is Indonesian meatball, and is an extremely popular Indonesian food. It’s everywhere; you’re just as likely to find it being sold by street vendors (called kaki lima), mom and pop eateries and swanky restaurants. I used to love ordering these fresh from the street vendors. And having them with all manner of chilli condiments. But I didn’t have to be in Indonesia to enjoy its delights.

Indonesian food has always been easily found in Singapore, given the close proximity of the countries and the many, many Indonesians studying and working on the island. I always had Indonesian classmates, 2 of them come to mind particularly, Fauziah and Lisa; we met at 12 as classmates, and are still in touch all these years later, thanks to modern technology.

Remember the Chinese meatballs we did about a month ago? These Indonesian meatballs are pretty similar in make up and in the method. In fact, many believe that Bakso was introduced to Indonesia by Chinese immigrants, while others contend that it is a copy of the Western meatballs via the Dutch (Indonesia was a former Dutch colony).

Making Bakso at Home

Bakso are pretty easy to make, you only need a few ingredients to make the actual balls. Then, you just drop them in boiling water or stock to cook them, which only takes a couple of minutes or so. It is also not uncommon to fry Bakso, but if you are planning to do that, I would suggest going smaller in size.

For our Bakso recipe today, we’ll do the whole lot, the meatballs, the super easy meat broth and finally, the noodles to serve them up with.

In Indonesia, bakso is often served this way, with a side of Sambal Ijo, chopped up chillies in dark soy sauce (like dipping sauce) and the ubiquitous red sambal, of any kind.

Click here to read more about different types of soy sauces.

Beef Broth for Bakso

If you are planning to serve the bakso as suggested here, with the noodles, don’t take a shortcut with the broth (or soup as we call it). The beef broth may take about 3 hours to make but only 10 minutes of that is actual hands on time, the rest is just about letting it simmer away, as you would when making stock.

All you need is some beef bones from your butcher and some aromatics and spices. If you can’t get beef bones, get some beef ribs, plenty of bone, with a little meat.

Bakso Texture

Bakso, like many other Far Eastern meatballs and fishballs, have an almost rubbery texture. This is from the blending of the ingredients in a food processor, the cornflour and the raising agent. To get this rubbery texture, you need a food processor.

Mixing with a spatula won’t give you the same result. However, I am not a fan of that almost tough, elastic feel, so I cut the blending time right down, along with the amount of flour I use in the mix.

How to make Indonesian Bakso

How to Serve Bakso

You can serve Bakso with any type of noodles you wish, or non at all. Bakso make fantastic finger food, place them on a platter with a cocktail stick in each, and have some ketchup or chilli sauce on the side.

Slice them up and the make a great filling ingredient in stir fries.

If serving with noodles, as in here, my favourite are rice vermicelli, the thin rice noodles, known as bee hoon or bihun.

If you are using dried noodles, always follow packet instructions for serving and cooking times as they can vary. A rough guide though would be 50 – 75 g (2⅔ oz) per person of dried weight (egg noodles weigh slightly more), to be cooked for 2 – 4 minutes (egg noodles take longer).

Fresh noodles – about twice the weight and they only need about a minute of cooking time.

Variation

You can make bakso with any meat you like: chicken, lamb, turkey, pork and even seafood.

That’s it, with all the boring stuff, let’s get cooking! As the method is exactly the same as making Chinese meatballs, here’s my video showing you how to roll them, followed by step by step pictures:

How to Roll Chinese Meatballs

Forming Asian meatballs in pictures

If you like the recipe, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Thank you!

And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor.

Lin xx

Indonesian Bakso

How to Make Bakso, Indonesian Meatballs

Bakso is Indonesian meatball, and is an extremely popular Indonesian food. It’s everywhere; you’re just as likely to find it being sold by street vendors (called kaki lima), mom and pop eateries and swanky restaurants.
4.90 from 83 votes
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Course: Starter or Main Course
Cuisine: Indonesian
Keyword: indonesian, meatballs
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes
Servings: 4 (Makes 12-18 meatballs, depending on size)
Calories: 327kcal
Author: Azlin Bloor

Ingredients

Beef Broth for Bakso (Soup)

  • 4 beef bones (weighing about 700 g (roughly 1.5 lb))
  • 2 litres water
  • 3 cloves garlic sliced
  • 5 cm ginger, sliced
  • 1 stalk celery
  • 2 spring onions scallions, chopped in three piece
  • 1 star anise petal
  • 1 very small cinnamon stick
  • ½ tsp sugar
  • ½ tsp white pepper
  • 1 tsp salt

Bakso

  • 500 g lean minced beef (5% fat)
  • 100 g cornflour (cornstarch in the US)
  • 3 cloves garlic minced/pounded
  • 1 small handful fresh coriander leaves and stalks cilantro
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ½ ground white pepper
  • ½ baking powder

To Serve

  • Noodles of your choice amount, see explanation above
  • 4 small handfuls beansprouts
  • 1 large handful of any greens like pak choi or spinach
  • sambal or chilli paste of your choice
  • sliced up red chillies in dark soy sauce as in the image
  • crispy shallots homemade or shop bought click to read more

Instructions

Beef Broth

  • Place everything in a large saucepan and bring to boil.
  • Lower heat and simmer for 3 hours, removing any scum that surfaces.
  • At the end of the cooking time, strain into a clean saucepan, and measure the amount. You need at least 1 litre of broth (4 cups). Add some water if you need to.
  • Set aside until needed to cook the bakso and the noodles.

Bakso

  • Place all the ingredients in a food processor and blend for 1 whole minute, until it’s all thoroughly mixed and you have a smooth mixture.
  • Tip the meat paste into a bowl. If you are not ready to cook them yet, cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge until needed.
  • When ready to cook, do a taste test first. Microwave a pinch of the meat paste for about 30 seconds, then taste it. Add more salt if needed.
  • Let’s make some balls! Scoop a small amount of the meatball paste in your hand, clench your fist and push the paste between the “hole” made by your thumb and forefinger (see images and video).
  • Use a teaspoon to scoop the ball off your hand.
  • Keep doing this until all the meatball paste has been used up. Rinse your hands regularly to keep the balls from sticking.
  • At this stage, you could roll them between your palms to create more rounded and smooth meatballs, if you like. Again, don’t forget to dip your hands in the bowl of cold water to keep the paste from sticking.
  • Bring a pot of water or the beef broth to boil.
  • Lower the heat right down and slowly, slide the meatballs into the simmering water. You want them to form roughly a single layer, don’t overfill the pot, so you may have to do this in 2 batches.
  • Increase the heat to medium high and keep a close eye on the meatballs.
  • As soon as the water starts to boil, lower the heat down to medium-low or low and simmer for 3 minutes. This should be enough time for the balls to cook. Don’t let the water come to a rolling boil as the meatballs might fall apart. The balls should also float to the surface when they are done.
  • When they are done, scoop out with a skimmer or slotted spoon and set aside.

To Serve

  • Have 4 bowls ready.
  • Cook the noodles in the simmering water following the packet instructions. Dried noodles will usually take about 1 – 2 minutes but each brand will be different. If you have fresh noodles, this will only take about 1 minute.
  • Drop the beansprouts in with the noodles in the last 30 seconds, just to scald. Drain and divide amongst the 4 bowls.
  • Divide the bakso equally and place on the noodles.
  • Add the greens, you can blanch them in the broth or use them as they are, up to you.
  • Now ladle the beef broth onto the bakso and noodles.
  • Scatter some fried shallots all over and serve immediately with the sambal and dark soy sauce.

To freeze Bakso

  • Cool to room temperature, place in a freezer proof bag and freeze for up to a month.

Fancy making Chinese Fishballs?

Notes

I’ve excluded the beef broth from the total time.
The total time reflects the time it takes to make the actual bakso.
Nutrition is for 6 people, and just for the bakso and meat broth. It doesn’t include the noodles and anything else you might serve it with.

Nutrition

Calories: 327kcal | Carbohydrates: 25g | Protein: 26g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 81mg | Sodium: 1250mg | Potassium: 448mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 60IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 33mg | Iron: 3mg
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45 thoughts on “How to Make Bakso, Indonesian Meatballs”

    1. Hi Ashley, you’ll need some sort of starch to help with the binding. So if you don’t want to use cornstarch, you’ll have to use breadcrumbs (about 2 oz/60g) and 1 egg.

  1. 5 stars
    Thank you for this recipe. I tried this with Tapioca Flour (as I ran out of corn flour) and it was just as good.
    I want to bring some meatballs to a family dinner but unfortunately some of them can’t have carb at all due to health reason. Is it ok if I replace the corn flour with chia seed flour or almond meal? Or what other low carb / no carb option would you recommend?
    Thank you in advance.

    1. Hi Jill, you can definitely use chia seed flour to replace the cornflour. The cornflour is there as a binding agent, so anything low carb that will bind will work. Almond meal doesn’t have the binding properties we need.
      You could also use an egg instead of the cornflour.

  2. Thanks for sharing this more acurate recipe, I am In jogjakarta and just had cilok, there are many variations. I thought the bakso were the cheapest pretend meatballs, reminds me of the Dutch Frikandel that has hardly any meat in it, if any it is chicken separator meat, I kinda like those but there is too little meat in them to claim meat sausage, just like the bakso. other recipes show real meat balls but in 2 months I have not seen them, they also don’t even bother with keeping them cool.

    PS. I do not think the bakso is related to our soup, they have sop which is clearly European and probably Dutch origin tastes just like soup at my grandmother when I was a child

    1. Hi Pieter, thanks for sharing your comments.
      It’s quite funny that you should mention frikandel. I was chatting to a couple of my Dutch friends just last week about it, trying to figure out if there is any truth behind the origin of the Indonesian perkedel or begedil in Singapore and Malaysia. It was for this article on my other, younger site: Begedil.

      What you talk about is often the problem with many meatballs and sausages, you just don’t know what goes into them. This is one of the reasons I prefer to make them myself and freeze them. So I always have some at home.

      Soup for bakso: sop or sup is how we spell (and say) soup in Indonesian and Malay. Bakso refers to the meatballs, as you know, and they can be eaten/sold as they are, whether boiled, fried or grilled. But they can also be served as a side with noodles and broth.

      So in this recipe here, I’ve given a recipe for beef soup (sop daging) so that my readers can serve the bakso as part of a meal, if that makes sense. The soup served with bakso is also known as kuah bakso, which translates to bakso gravy/sauce/soup/broth, whatever you want to call it in English.
      When bakso is served as a complete meal, with noodles in broth/soup, with other local toppings like a sambal and fried shallots, it’s called bakso lengkap, in case you come across it. Lengkap means complete. Basically with all the trimmings, as we’d say in English.

      I would love to hear about your food experiences while you are there. My last trip back was in 2015, too long ago!

  3. 5 stars
    Wow. Wish I could post a pic of how it turned out. Just delicious. Great recipe and easy instructions.

  4. after i testing,how is bakso like
    and i feel love to try make it too,
    because i dont even know how
    to made bakso is, but anyway it’s
    okay now i’ll tried to made it again thanks for your information i’m glad coz i know
    how make a bakso.

  5. Just came across your recipe.

    To freeze the bakso, do you cooked them first or leave freeze them uncooked?

    1. Hi Melina, you can do either. If I’ve made extra for the day, I freeze them uncooked. And if I happen to have extra after serving the meal, they get placed in the freezer too.
      I cook them straight from frozen.

  6. Thank you for your free time to visit my personal blog, and sorry if there is no comment box. I will definitely provide a comment box.

    Your writing really inspired me, many great menus from all over the world that you wrote. Complete with nutritional value contained. You are amazing.

    What I mean is not Gado-gado, but Bakso Bakar. And the most famous in my city is Bakso Bakar Pak Man.

    Actually there are many more variants of Meatballs in my city such as, Bakso President Malang, Bakso Kota and many more. Once again I’m sorry if my English is bad, Thanks.

    1. Terima kasih, Anisya! I really appreciate your kind words. Kalau cakap dalam bahasa Melayu, saya faham. Bakso bakar sounds very delicious! Pernah makan tapi meatball bakar di Malaysia, bukan bakso tu. I have to check on Google all the different bakso you have mentioned!
      Are you on Instagram or Facebook? I would love to see photos of your Indonesian food. I am on all social media as Azlin Bloor.

  7. In my country Meatballs are a favorite food, especially in the city of Malang. Because the city of Malang is the city of Bakso, have you heard of processed satay meatballs and seasonings of salad? very tasty

    1. Hi Anisya, if you tell me the names in Indonesian, I’m sure I’ll know them. I have ha sate bakso. That’s definitely delicious. Do you mean gado gado, when you mention the salad?
      I visited your website, great recipes. I can’t find anywhere to leave a comment though.

  8. Elizabeth O.

    I’ve seen these being made on TV but I’ve never tried making them at home. They sound so filling and I’m sure they’re great with noodles.

  9. Wendy Polisi

    This is tasty for sure. I always wanted to try Indonesian food and this one is something really I want to try.

  10. I bow to your culinary greatness, Azlin! And thank you for posting a recipe for one of my favourite food. I haven’t had them in years and amazing that despite being Indonesian, I didn’t realise how easy they are to make! I am going to make these this weekend. Got some friends coming for lunch on Sunday, these will be perfect! I will tell you how they turn out and a request? More Indonesian recipes please! My Dutch husband loves them!

    1. Hey Diann, thank you so much for that lavish praise! I am so happy that you are happy! I look forward to your verdict (and the husband and friends too) and I promise more Indonesian recipes soon! xx

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