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You’ll love these super tender and delicious Chicken Meatballs even if you aren’t eating a lower carb diet.
Tender, flavorful, and low carb Chicken Meatballs
Hi everyone – it’s Jack. Over the last few years, I’ve been eating a lower carb diet as much as possible – and judging by the popularity of our keto recipes these days – it seems a lot of you are eating lower carb too! With that in mind, I’m sharing my Keto Chicken Meatballs recipe.
When I first started experimenting with lower carb ingredients, I tried a number of other Keto Chicken Meatball recipes, but they all seemed to miss the mark a bit. I wanted moist, tender, flavorful, lower carb chicken meatballs – and finally found it with today’s recipe.
Tips & Tricks to make the Best Low Carb Chicken Meatballs:
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- First, grind your own chicken! Some store-bought ground chicken brands are loaded with additives and water which will make your chicken mixture very wet and loose. To counteract that – you’ll need to add extra dry ingredients to get a firm meatball, and that covers up the taste of the chicken. Additionally, store-bought ground chicken is often ground too fine – and the texture is just mushy. Instead, buy fresh boneless chicken and use a food processor to grind it up. Keep the processing to a minimum, pulsing just a few times and leaving a few bean-sized chunks in the ground chicken mixture.
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- Use half boneless breast meat and half boneless thigh meat. Thigh meat has more flavor than breast meat – plus the additional fat in the thigh meat also helps keep the meatballs moist.
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- Equal parts almond flour, coconut flour and golden flax meal is the perfect combination of low-carb dry ingredients to substitute for bread crumbs in this chicken meatball recipe. They yield a tender meatball, and you’ll just taste chicken – not the flavors of any of those three binders.
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- Freeze the raw meatballs for an hour before frying – in part, to keep the shape, but this also helps seal in the moisture as the chicken meatballs sear in the skillet.
We make our Keto Chicken Meatballs into a baked meatball parmesan type of dish. After frying the meatballs, we add chicken broth to the tomatoes – which also helps them stay moist while they bake. Once cooked through, we sprinkle cheese on the meatballs and set them under a broiler – just long enough to melt the cheese.
Why You’ll Love Our Chicken Meatballs
- They are easy to make and cook up moist, tender, and flavorful.
- Everyone will enjoy these meatballs – even if they aren’t trying to eat a low carb diet.
- You can enjoy these chicken meatballs in many ways – served plain, in a casserole smothered in sauce and cheese, and more!
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
- Chicken – We used a combination of boneless skinless chicken breasts and boneless skinless chicken thighs. The combination of the white and dark meats gives these chicken meatballs the perfect taste and texture.
- Eggs
- Cream Cheese
- Garlic – Buy fresh garlic and finely mince it. (Don’t buy the jarred garlic – it has a bitter, processed taste.)
- Almond Flour
- Coconut Flour
- Flax Meal
- Cheese – Both Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses are used in the meatballs themselves, as well as to top the baked meatball Parmesan casserole. We always recommend buying blocks of cheese and shredding it yourself whenever possible.
- Seasonings – Salt, cracked black pepper, dried basil & oregano.
- Olive Oil – To fry the meatballs.
- To Make the Chicken Meatball Parmesan Casserole – Chicken broth, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic powder.
Special Tools You’ll Need
- Cutting Board & Sharp Knife
- Various Measuring Cups & Spoons
- Food Processor
- Box Grater – To shred the cheese.
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Small Scoop – To form the meatballs.
- Sheet Tray lined with Parchment Paper
- Large Skillet
- Tongs
- Large Casserole Dish or Braiser with Cover
- (Optional) Spiralizer – To make Zucchini Spaghetti for serving, if desired.
How do I make Chicken Meatballs?
- Grind the chicken using a food processor. Don’t over-process, you want the consistency to have some small bits of chicken visible, not completely ground.
- Mix by hand the ground chicken with eggs, cream cheese, almond and coconut flours, flax meal, and seasonings.
- Form chicken mixture into meatballs.
- Line meatballs up on a sheet tray, then freeze for one hour.
- Saute meatballs in a skillet until browned on the outside.
- Transfer cooked meatballs to an oven-safe braiser or casserole dish with a cover.
- In the skillet that you used to brown the meatballs, add chicken broth, tomatoes, tomato paste, and seasonings. Simmer until thick.
- Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs.
- Cover and bake the meatballs and sauce for 20 minutes.
- Remove the cover, sprinkle with cheese, and broil until cheese is melted and browned.
- Serve immediately. (See serving suggestions below.)
Serving Suggestions
- To keep things low carb, we served our Chicken Meatballs over our Zucchini Spaghetti (aka “zoodles”) – but you can also serve them as-is, with just sauce and cheese on top, or over riced cauliflower.
This Chicken Meatballs recipe originally appeared on A Family Feast in 2020. We’ve updated the post, but the delicious recipe remains the same.
You Might Like These Other Low-Carb Recipes
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Keto Chicken Meatballs
You’ll love these super tender and delicious Chicken Meatballs even if you aren’t eating a low carb diet.
Ingredients
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into chunks
1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into chunks
2 whole eggs, beaten
8 ounce package full fat cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 tablespoons finely minced fresh garlic
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup golden flax meal
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 teaspoons dry basil, divided
2 teaspoons dry oregano, divided
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup low sodium broth (chicken, bone, vegetable or beef, your choice)
1 14.5-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Zucchini Spaghetti for serving, optional
Instructions
- Place half of the chicken in the food processor and pulse for 10-15 seconds in bursts until the meat is somewhat ground but not pulverized. You should still see small bits of chicken not completely ground.
- Pour into a large bowl and repeat with the rest of the chicken.
- Add the eggs, cream cheese, garlic, almond flour, coconut flour, flax meal, ¼ cup of the Parmesan cheese, ¼ cup of the mozzarella cheese, 1 teaspoon of the salt, ½ teaspoon of the pepper, 1 teaspoon of the basil and 1 teaspoon of the oregano. Mix by hand to combine but do not over mix.
- Use a small scoop continually dipped in water and scoop out 36 meatballs. Each will be a little over an ounce.
- Line a sheet tray that will fit in your freezer with parchment paper and keeping your hands wet, roll each meatball and line up on the tray. Freeze the tray for one hour.
- After one hour, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a very large non-stick skillet or saute pan, heat the oil over medium heat and once hot, fry half of the meatballs turning to brown all sides for about 8-10 minutes. Remove these with tongs to a casserole dish or oven-safe braiser with cover, large enough to handle the entire batch. Repeat for the rest of the meatballs.
- Increase the heat to medium high and add the broth, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and the remaining salt, pepper, basil, oregano and the ½ teaspoon of garlic powder and cook until slightly thick, about 3-4 minutes.
- Pour over the meatballs, cover and bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and turn on your broiler.
- Sprinkle on the remaining Parmesan and mozzarella cheese and broil for a few minutes to melt and brown.
- Serve with Zucchini Spaghetti if desired.
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Notes
The finished sauce will be a little loose, which is by design.
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