These delicious keto buffalo chicken meatballs have all of the flavor of your favorite classic buffalo wings without the bones, skin, or mess! Low carb and gluten free too!
To get straight to the keto buffalo chicken meatballs recipe click the jump to recipe button above!
Superbowl is coming up in a few days and like most of you, we’re having a few friends over. In the past, classic buffalo wings were a must at our parties, and they are still pretty awesome. But from a logistics point of view, they can be annoying – especially with a large crowd.
Chicken wings are incredibly messy for one thing, and it’s not easy to eat them gracefully – and then if you have a drink in one hand and a plate in the other, it gets super complicated. Also there is always that awkward what do I do with these chicken bones issue.
Behold the keto buffalo chicken meatball – all of the flavors of a buffalo wing, in a low carb and keto friendly, easy to eat package. And they are super good! I may never make wings again!
Ok not really, but I’ll make them when nobody else is coming over, so I can ravage every last piece of meat off of them like a good wing deserves, without a mortified audience looking on in horror! I just giggled out loud picturing that…heh heh….
Anyway, these keto buffalo chicken meatballs have all the flavor of your favorite classic buffalo wings, with none of the bones, skin or mess.
If you’re like Mr. Hungry, this is a plus, because he doesn’t like the skin and hates eating chicken meat off of the bone – but he loves the flavor of classic buffalo wings.
If you’re a crockpot lover, you can totally form these and place them in the bottom of your crockpot, then pour the sauce over them and cook for about 3 hours on low – viola, buffalo chicken meatballs ready to go!
These keto buffalo chicken meatballs have a subtle blue cheese flavor, but I love the dressing so I added more and it was awesome! And of course, you must serve with celery sticks to be authentic!
More Buffalo Chicken Inspired Recipes:
Keto Egg Fast Buffalo Omelette
Buffalo Chicken Chopped Salad – Kara Creates
Buffalo Chicken Dip – Frank’s Red Hot
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Keto Buffalo Chicken Meatballs – Low Carb and Gluten Free
- Total Time: 37 minutes
- Yield: 18 meatballs 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
These delicious keto buffalo chicken meatballs have all of the flavor of your favorite classic buffalo wings without the bones, skin, or mess! Gluten free and Low Carb too!
Ingredients
For the Meatballs:
- 1lb ground chicken or turkey
- 1/3 cup almond flour
- 2 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons chopped celery
- 3 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
For the Sauce:
- 1/2 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar substitute (I like erythritol)
Instructions
- Combine all of the meatball ingredients in a medium bowl.
- DO NOT ADD SALT!!! The Frank’s is super salty, as is the blue cheese so trust me you don’t need to add more.
- The mix will be sticky and gooey but that’s normal – if you are having trouble forming them, chill the mixture for 30 minutes before rolling into balls.
- Form into about 1 inch balls – remember these are cocktail/bite sized so don’t make them too big.
- Place them on a greased cookie sheet (with sides) and bake at 375 degrees (F) for 10 minutes.
- To make the sauce, combine the Frank’s and butter in a small saucepan on medium heat, or place in a microwave safe bowl for 2 minutes on high.
- After 10 minutes, remove balls from oven and dunk carefully (they are tender from the cream cheese and could fall apart if you are too rough) in the buffalo sauce.
- Put back onto the cookie sheet and bake for another 12 minutes.
- Remove and serve hot.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 22 minutes
- Category: Keto meatballs
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 3 meatballs
- Calories: 331
- Fat: 28g
- Carbohydrates: 2g net
- Protein: 17g
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Doris says
Hi Melissa,
I finally just made these today to take to my church’s small group in a few hours. I forgot to add the ground pepper, and to your recipe, I deleted one egg and added ground flaxseed. How much? I have no clue, as I told my daughter to put some in, and then I would mix the mixture and do it by feel. I actually doubled your recipe. Probably I put about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of ground flaxseed for your recipe.
Doing these alterations allowed me to use a teaspoon to get a mound on the teaspoon and shape it with my fingers. I greased my hands with olive oil generously first to make shaping the balls easier. I did use a baking sheet, but hate cleaning it, so I lined with aluminum foil and sprayed it with olive oil. You have to spray it with olive oil otherwise it will stick.
I baked as your recipe and all the balls held together beautifully. I believe omitting 1 egg and adding ground flaxseed allowed this. The ground flaxseed has no taste, so I think this would be better than the almond meal. My ground chicken was pretty moist to begin with, and as I read the comments prior, I added the eggs with caution. Used 2 eggs for a little over 2 lbs of ground chicken.
The subtle flavor of the blue cheese was great, combined with the moisture from the cream cheese and the crunch of the celery. This is a yummy recipe. My kids have now eaten a bunch and I need to make another batch so I have enough for life group.
Anyway, from your recipe with my alternations, it makes about 25-30 cocktail sized meatballs. I’m sure they will be a hit at life group. What’s really cool is that I can eat stuff like this and STILL lose weight. These meatballs are chock full of protein, good fats, and fiber. There’s a Buffalo Chicken recipe that is awesome, flavorful, and you wouldn’t even know it was healthy.
Thank you for sharing your recipe with us, and being humble enough to take our comments and suggestions. You rock!
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thank you SO much Doris! I appreciate you taking the time to share your method with us and I will totally try the flax next time based on your recommendation! I’m going to double the recipe next time too so that I can freeze some! Hope your group enjoyed them – assuming your kids left any! ;) So glad it was such a hit! XO
Doris says
Hi Melissa again,
The Buffalo Balls were a HUGE hit! I ended up making a total of 150 balls total – a little over 5 lbs of ground chicken. All the buffalo balls were scarfed up quickly. People look forward to seeing what I will bring. People found them so tasty and I gave them the recipe, which was really easy. The guys bet that there was something super healthy in it (all of it was healthy). I told them there was ground flaxseed, but no one tasted it.
They had great texture, held together beautifully. One of the things of baking them is that if you use aluminium foil, you have to respray it generously otherwise, the hot sauce mixture will burn slightly and can cause it to stick. So, I guess I shouldn’t have been lazy and just sprayed the baking pan itself. I made 2 batches in the toaster oven with no tin foil and none stuck to the pan as did with the foil.
So, to 1 lb of ground chicken, I say only add 1 egg. Something that I found that helps also better shape the balls is to slightly freeze the ground chicken for an hour or so, so it’s not quite as moist. If it’s frozen, then don’t completely thaw out, but maybe thaw out to about 90%.
Essentially, I made 5 batches of this recipe today. I made a homemade blue cheese recipe (organic mayo, sour cream, crumbled blue cheese, ground pepper, worchestor sauce, red wine vinegar, garlic powder – low carb). That was a hit, too. I didn’t measure amounts and just threw what felt right together.
Gotta have the celery, like you said. Next month is Asian, so now I’ve gotta come up with a good low carb recipe. :)
Stephanie says
Hi there I have yet to make these Buffalo Balls and plan on trying this week for a girl’s night. Thanks for all the helpful tips, and I have one too that I think would be helpful _ Alcan Slide Tinfoil! This stuff is fabulous I use it all the time for sticky stuff that I don’t really wanna scrub off my baking sheets and food literally “slides” right off. It’s about $3 or $4 for a small roll so only use it for those sticky things that really need it.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Thanks for the tip Stephanie! Hope you like them!
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Hey Doris! This comment got lost when I switched to Disqus so I never was able to respond to until today when I turned Disqus off! Thanks for all of your tips, including using chilled meat – genius! I want to try making my own blue cheese dressing, homemade is always better than the jarred stuff. Your comment about needing an asian recipe reminded me of an asian meatball recipe I used to make for parties all the time years ago and I’m wondering if I can make it low carb. Will get to work on that soon! :)
Jo says
Thanks so so much Melissa!! I really appreciate the reply so much. I sort of made up a sauce from scratch using the suggested recipe from the link you gave above and it turned out well, thank you! And then this morning I managed to track down an online shop selling Franks sauce in UK!! YEAY! So excited to try this recipe for real once it arrives in the post! Again, thanks so much for all the low carb, gluten free recipes. You are a proper genius and I can’t thank you enough! :)
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Your welcome Jo, glad the recipe worked out for you! It will be so much easier to make when you get the Frank’s though! Hopefully it won’t be a disappointment after making your own homemade version! :)
Jo says
Hi Melissa,
I absolutely love your blog! I just discovered it three days ago and have already impressed my husband with the pancakes, pizza, hummus, crackers, lime tarts…! SO grateful for so many gluten free ideas – it’s really hard having to eat gluten free and I so appreciate the idea. I would love to make these balls too but I have no idea what Frank’s Hot Sauce is! I live in the UK and unfortunately we don’t have that here. Do you know what it’s made of / flavour / texture etc so that I might re-create it somehow?! Thanks again, you are AMAZING!
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks Jo! It’s awesome that you’ve made some many of the recipes in just a few days! As far as the hot sauce, it’s a cayenne based hot sauce that is thin in consistency and orange in color. Like tabasco if you are familiar with that. Not sure what the uk equivalent would be. I googled to find you a recipe and found this one. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100427070531AAeSd24 It seems complicated so hopefully you can find something else to use. Another common brand here that is similar is Texas Pete but you are unlikely to find that in the uk either probably! Let me know if you figure something out or try out the hot sauce recipe! Thanks!
Anon O. Miss says
Made these for lunch today- mine are hideously deformed, but absolutely delicious. I added probably 3/4 cup of almond meal, and other than the occasional extra bit of crunch, I don’t sense too much of a texture thing, and I’m super sensitive to textures. I should have heeded the advice to use a bit less egg as these were really hard to work with. Overall totally worth it, and will definitely make them again! I absolutely love your blog- I’m doing low-carb, high-fat, so I’m always looking for new low-carb meals, and your blog has become a daily staple for me! I’m tackling Fisherman’s Pie tomorrow night =)
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks for reporting back on the texture thing, I still haven’t tried the almond meal yet but I think I will next batch! So glad that you are enjoying the blog – I hope it helps you stay on track! I have a lot more low carb recipe ideas kicking around so stay tuned! Hope you like the Fisherman’s pie too – it’s one of my new faves! BTW – love your name! :)
Cheryl says
I tried these yesterday and they were delicious!! I did give your idea a try and added just 2/3 of the egg mixture. They were still pretty runny while trying to work with them, but they cooked up just fine. I also sprinkled in some bread crumbs (not much, I’d say a 1/4 cup at the most). Not sure if this made a difference in the texture or not, but they turned out great! I also doused them in the sauce :) I’ll definitely be making these again. Looking forward to trying more of your low carb recipes, thanks!
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks Cheryl, I’m glad they came out well for you! Gotta sauce em up! So yummy! Once I’m not being so strictly low carb I’ll probably add some bread crumbs to my recipe too. Still planning to try the almond meal next time and see how that works. I guess I could use flax meal too but I don’t know if it would be weird. Either way this was a big fave at our house too so I’ll be making them a lot!
Cajunsmoke13 says
What a great recipe. I can’t wait to try this one. Thanks for posting.
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks Cajun! Let us know what you think!
Maria says
I’m bookmarking this for the next time I need a fabulous appetizer.
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks Maria, hope you love them! You may want to increase the meat or decrease the egg slightly to make them easier to work with per the above post. Let us know how they come out! :)
NowSoLA Vintage says
Thanks for sharing so many wonderful recipes! I recently came across your blog, have already tried a few of your low carb creations, and have enjoyed every one! I was a little apprehensive about these buffalo balls, as my chicken mixture was so runny I couldn’t form it into balls & didn’t think that it would firm up. I just spooned some of the mixture onto the baking sheet and gave it a shot. After all was said & done, we had more of a “boneless buffalo chicken mini-patty”, but they tasted very delicious! Next time I may try closer to 1.5 lbs of meat to offset the egg. Thanks for another great recipe!
Cheers ~ Lara
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thanks Lara, I’m so glad you are enjoying the blog! I hated that they were so runny too, though mine did hold their shape, barely. I was thinking I’d use more meat next time too, or crack the egg into a bowl and beat it and only add two thirds of it to the meat mixture. Glad you liked the flavor though and let us know if you figure out a good trick for next time! I was also thinking of adding 1/2 cup of almond meal to firm them up but didn’t know if it would alter the flavor or texture too much. I’ll report back with any improvements to the recipe…
liz says
Add grated Parmesan, the stuff you buy in the green jars is the best for this – about a 1/2 cup. I use this to make meatballs all the time since we quit eating bread and I don’t have to add almond flour (can’t stand the stuff any more). Makes a very good meatball!
Erin Sedgley says
Or you could use egg substitute ( lower in calories) and just add what you need.
bluejeanfoodcritic says
Congrats on being awarded Super Bowl 2012 best dish by Bluejeanfoodcritic
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Thank you so much BJFC! And thanks to whoever forwarded you the link! :)
Simply Tia says
What a wonderful, appetizing treat! I’m going to have to bookmark. I love buffalo wings so much, so this would be perfect for me!
Mellissa Sevigny (sevimel) says
Hope you like them Tia!