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You’ll love these super tender and delicious Keto Chicken Meatballs even if you aren’t eating a low carb diet.
Happy New Year everyone – it’s Jack. Over the last year or so, I’ve been eating a lower carb diet – 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, low carb chicken meatballs – and finally found it with today’s recipe.
Tips & Tricks to make the Best Keto Chicken Meatballs:
- First, DO NOT use store-bought ground chicken. Some 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.
- 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 will help keep the meatballs moist.
- 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.
- 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.
Finally, we make our Keto Chicken Meatballs into a sort of keto meatball chicken parmesan-type dish. After frying the meatballs, I added chicken broth to the tomatoes – which also helps them stay moist while they bake. Once cooked through, I sprinkled cheese on the meatballs and set them under a broiler – just long enough to melt the cheese.
How do you serve Keto Chicken Meatballs?
We served our Keto 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.
You may enjoy these other Low-Carb Recipes:
- Keto Italian Sausage and Cauliflower Rice Soup
- Baked Western Omelet {Keto, Low-Carb}
- Beef and Kale Skillet {Keto, Low-Carb}
- Keto Chicken Cheese Bake
- Keto Stuffing
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Keto Chicken Meatballs
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
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup low sodium broth (chicken, bone, vegetable or beef, your choice)
1 14.5–ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
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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