Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
Who doesn’t love meatballs? Everyone loves meatballs! Let’s take a spin on a classic and pack them full of everyone’s favorite buffalo wing flavors – creamy blue cheese dressing, green onions, celery sticks, and a tangy hot sauce. These bite-sized delights are the perfect appetizer for football season and beyond! Let’s get into the details of what you will need to whip up these buffalo meatballs.
Ground Chicken
Lean ground chicken will serve as our meatball base in this great recipe. You will also need all of the components of traditional meatballs such as bread crumbs and eggs to help bind everything together. Ground chicken is easy to find at any grocery store, it will be located in the meat aisle with all of the other poultry options, often next to the ground turkey which could be used as a substitution.
Big Buffalo Flavor
We’re going to bring out that traditional flavor of buffalo chicken wings and buffalo chicken dip with a few simple ingredients. You will start by making a sauce that combines butter, blue cheese crumbles, and store-bought buffalo wing sauce. You will combine these three ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat until the blue cheese melts and then remove from heat to let cool. Part of this sauce will be added to the meatball mixture as well as plenty of diced green onion and celery resulting in the most delicious buffalo chicken meatballs. If you want a wing sauce version you can check it out HERE
Directions:
Let’s start by whipping up the sauce that we’ll need for this buffalo chicken meatball recipe. Place the butter, wing sauce (I always use Frank’s red hot) and crumbled blue cheese in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir continuously for several minutes until the butter and blue cheese has melted to create the yummiest buffalo blue cheese sauce. Set aside to cool.
Gather all of your meatball ingredients. In a large bowl combine the ground chicken, eggs and about half of the sauce and stir to combine. Next you are going to add the green onion, garlic, celery and bread crumbs and mix until everything is evenly combined.
Grab a large sheet pan and line with parchment paper, if you dont have any you can always brush a cookie sheet with olive oil. I try to always have parchment paper on hand since it makes clean up a breeze. You will also need a cookie scoop to help you form small meatballs. If you don’t have a cookie scoop you can also use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon. It is helpful to keep the size of your meatballs the same so that they all cook consistinently.
Scoop out the meat mixture and place meatballs on your prepared baking sheet. Place them in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until 165 Degrees Farenheit.
Toss meatballs in the remaining buffalo sauce and then plate to serve. I love to sprinkle additional green onion over the top for an extra pop of flavor and color. Serve these easy buffalo chicken meatballs with extra blue cheese dressing or ranch dressing and thinly sliced stalks of celery. There you have it – the perfect party appetizer!
Can these be made ahead of time?
YOU BET! I love prepping these a day or two ahead of time. You can fully prepare the sauce and meatballs but wait to cook them until you are ready. Simply place the prepared meatballs in an airtight container and refrigerate until you are ready to cook them. You will also want to store the remaining sauce in the refrigerator as well – be sure to warm it back up before drizzling it over the cooked meatballs and serving.
How many meatballs will this make?
This recipe should yeild approxamitley 24 1-inch meatballs and is the perfect addition to your football sundays!
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
Creamy Wing Sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup Frank's hot sauce or any buffalo wing sauce
- 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- 2 eggs
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 large celery stalk finely diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2/3 cup bread crumbs
- 1/3 cup green onion diced
- half of the creamy wing sauce
- generous sprinkle of sea salt
- blue cheese dressing for serving
- ranch dressing for serving
Instructions
Creamy Wing Sauce
- In a small saucepan combine the butter, wing sauce, and blue cheese crumbles.
- Heat on medium-high heat for several minutes. Stir continuously until the butter and blue cheese are fully melted.
- Remove from heat.
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- In a large bowl add the ground chicken, eggs, and half of the prepared creamy wing sauce. Combine.
- Add the green onion, garlic, celery, and bread crumbs to the meatball mixture and mix well.
- Use a cookie scoop to form meatballs and place them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until 165 degree F internal.
- Toss the cooked meatballs in the remaining creamy wing sauce and plate them on your serving dish.
- Feel free to sprinkle extra green onion and crumbled blue cheese on top of the meatballs if desired.
- Serve with blue cheese dressing or ranch dressing for dipping.
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
7 Comments on “Buffalo Chicken Meatballs”
Ranch is gross. I know not everyone shares my opinion but I was thrilled you went with the classic and delicious blue Cheese combined with the Buffalo Chicken. Any restaurant that serves ranch instead deserves to go out of business in short order!! Ignore the ranch suggestion in this recipe but some crumbled Blue Cheese and or the dressing offer excellent compliments to the other flavors going on. Don’t be worried if the spelling on the cheese packaging is a little different in your local market.
Im here for all the blue cheese! Thanks Jill
These are AMAZING! The perfect appetizer to bring to a party.
Thanks Jayda! Love to hear you enjoyed them!
Ohh, these are fun! Great flavors! I love Frank’s.
Could you do these in batches in an air fryer?
Yes! about 10 min at 400 degrees. just make sure the internal temp of the meatballs is hitting 165