With the busy holiday season over it is time to get back to regular blogging. The one upside of the holiday season was that it gave me an opportunity to cook a lot and spend good quality time with my wife. Also, Christmas brought me some new cookbooks that give me the opportunity to try some new recipes and share them with all of you.
In honor of my love of football and sports in general, I give you a true gameday treat. These meatballs include all of the delicious flavors of chicken wings without needing a fryer or have any of the usual mess. If you are planning on hosting a game day party in the near future, whether it be the college national championship game or the superbowl, these mini meatballs are low maintenance and can be prepped in advance so you can enjoy the sports excitement as well.
A few cut ups of the recipe that I need to mention: first of all, I used chicken breast meat. After cooking, I was a little disappointed with the color and crispiness of the final product as you will see below. The first thing you might do to fix this is (like the recipe recommends) use ground thigh meat. Also, I am going to try when eating the leftovers, crisping the meatballs in a frying pan to get a little crunch on the outside.
Mini Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- 2 Tbs vegetable oil
- 4 Tbs butter
- 1/3 cup hot sauce of your choice ( I used Frank’s)
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 egg
- 1/2 stalk of minced celery
- 3/4 cup bread crumbs
- 1 tsp salt
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Coat a 9×13 baking dish with the vegetable oil using your hands and set aside.
- In a small sauce pan over low heat, melt the butter in the hot sauce until everything is well incorporated and allow to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine the hot sauce mixture, chicken, celery, salt, breadcrumbs, and egg and mix until well incorporated
- Roll the mixture into small 3/4 inch meatballs and arrange in the pan in a grid pattern, making sure that the meatballs are touching each other.
- Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the meatballs reaches 165 degrees. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before enjoying.
This recipe comes courtesy of my wife’s Christmas present for me, “The Meatball Shop Cookbook” by Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow.
The Cut Up Cook 