Italian Chicken Meatballs

First of all, these Italian chicken meatballs are one of the best meatballs I've ever had.  Yes, that is a bold statement and yes I stand behind it.  They were super easy to make, like most of my meals are.  I also baked them, which made for easy cooking and cleanup. 

I lined a baking pan with parchment paper and sprayed it with avocado oil cooking spray and laid my balls out on that before baking.  Once the balls were done I used a spatula and moved them to a serving dish then just tossed the parchment paper, and voila, cleanup was done!

Ingredients to make these meatballs

To make these delicious balls you will need a large mixing bowl, 2 baking pans, parchment paper, and a metal spatula.  I find the metal spatulas scoop the balls off the parchment paper easier.  Now for the ingredients.

1. ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs
2. ¼ cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (plain almond milk will work too or low-fat milk)
3. 1 large egg, lightly beaten
4. ¹⁄3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
5. ¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
6. 1 tsp ground black pepper
7. 1 tsp kosher salt
8. 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
9. 1 3½ oz sweet Italian chicken sausage link, casing removed
10. 12 oz of ground chicken
11. avocado oil cooking spray

How to make these balls

Preheat oven to 375° and line 2 baking pans with parchment paper and spray with avocado oil cooking spray.  Set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, combine your breadcrumbs and milk and let sit for 10 minutes.  Stir in the egg, cheese, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper into the breadcrumb mixture.  Break your sausage up into pieces and your sausage and chicken to the breadcrumb mixture, mix until well combined. 

Using clean hands, form mixture into balls, about 1 tablespoon.  I had my daughter, Taylor, help me with this part and she had a ball.  Arrange the meatballs on the prepared baking pans and bake for 20 minutes.  Serve plain or with your favorite dipping sauce.  At the moment, mine is Tesseamae's Classic Ranch 🙂  You can also make these into a large meat loaf.  All you have to do is add another 12 oz of ground chicken and use a loaf pan to dump your mix.  Cook on 400° for 1 hour.

Check out this Tessemae's variety pack - Classic Ranch, Cilantro Lime Ranch, Buffalo Ranch

Tip on your chicken labels

• Natural is regulated, but only indicates "minimal" processing and no artificial ingredients are added. 
• No Antibiotics means the chickens are never given them. 
• No Hormones, also regulated, is moot because their use isn't allowed for poultry. 
• Free Range means the chicken had some daily access to the outdoors. 
• USDA Organic means organic feed, no antibiotics and the birds lived by free-range standards.  Other labels aren't regulated.