Chicken Meatball Mania

I don’t know about you, but I cannot think of anyone in my life who does not like meatballs. It is hard to go wrong with meatballs. Well, I’m sure there is a way to make meatballs wrong, but decent meatballs never seem to go uneaten.

Meatballs are one of those things that I like to make a ton of and then freeze for later. The problem is

that I have to make like 128 meatballs in order to have enough to freeze! That’s only a small exaggeration. It never fails, meatballs mysteriously disappear before I get them all into the sauce or soup that I have prepared for them. They are just so easy grab and just plain tasty!

From appetizers to main courses, from simply sauced to stuffed, from beef to pork to poultry, I think the only thing I haven’t tried to do with meatballs is breakfast (challenge accepted). I think meatballs are pretty simple to make. I know it takes a little bit of time to roll them all but it really is a labor of love!

There was a little extra labor involved when I made these meatballs this weekend. Back when our grocery store had its’ “legendary meat sale” and I purchased 40 pounds of chicken breast, I had to trim them myself before I froze them. The “scraps” that I trimmed off to make my chicken breasts pretty and presentable, added up to quite a bit of chicken, so I threw those in the freezer too. Another one of my favorite things about meatballs; you can make them out of “scraps”. I happen to have a meat grinding attachment for my stand mixer but I feel like I have seen a whole slew of appliances or attachments so the home cook can get gritty and grind up any kind of beef, pork or poultry they get their hands on. I’m not going to lie, it is fun to see your specially seasoned chicken come out of the meat grinder looking all professional and stuff!

Now, I don’t grind my own chicken every time I make chicken meatballs! But I think it is a fun project and I love having this as an option when all kinds of meat are on a huge sale. Whether I grind my own chicken or buy it that way at the store, I do like to add ground pork the meatball mix. I really enjoy the flavor that comes from the fatty pork and the texture comes out perfectly!

Being inspired by Super Bowl Sunday, last weekend’s chicken meatballs were served with buffalo sauce and crumbled gorgonzola. DELICIOUS! And that’s all I have to say about that. I was able to stash a couple dozen of these bad boys in the freezer. Now I’m having two struggles; 1) I kind of want to just pull them out and snack on them… like now… and 2) I can’t decide how to dress them up when I do take them out. Chicken meatballs are awesome in the slow cooker with teriyaki sauce! They can be an appetizer or served over a bed of rice with some steamed veggies for dinner. Then again, chicken meatballs floating in Italian Wedding Soup is like pure bliss. But let’s not forget about chicken parmesan meatball sandwiches… See, this is why I have to make 128 meatballs at a time!

Chicken Meatballs

1 lb ground chicken (or turkey)

1 lb ground pork

2 eggs

3/4 - 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

2 Tbs dried parsley (4 Tbs fresh, minced)

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350° and spray 2 large cookie sheets with non-stick spray.

Combine all meatball ingredients in a large bowl. Start with 3/4 cup bread crumbs - if the mixture is still too wet to hold meatball shape, add more of the bread crumbs until it's rollable.

Gather roughly 1 Tbs of mixture for each meatball and roll. Bake for 25 minutes or until cooked through.