Baked Chicken Meatballs and Spaghetti

Chicken Meatballs – little golden balls that are juicy on the inside, bursting with savoury flavour, these are BAKED so they hold their nice round shape and frankly, it’s just way easier than pan frying! Spaghetti and meatballs was never so tasty!

And PS – just wait until you see how soft these are in the video!

Chicken Meatballs

Monday Meatball Mania* is back – and fellow meatball lovers, I have a ripper for you today! Beautiful, juicy, super tasty chicken meatballs that are baked, not fried. No more rolling meatballs around in the skillet, tediously ensuring they brown as evenly as possible all over and praying to a higher power that they stay nice and round.

Forget that. Just spray ’em and bake ’em!

* Monday Meatball Mania is a “thing” that my friend Jo from Jo Cooks and I started at the beginning of 2017. Because we both agree that all ball shaped food is delicious, and there should be more of it in the world, so we’re making our contribution by each sharing a meatball recipe on the last Monday of every month.

Chicken Meatballs MUST be soft and juicy!

Look how soft they are! ↑↑↑ Can’t squeeze dry, hard meatballs like that. You’ll see the squeezing action in the video too. 😉

And here’s a little peek inside. Juicy!

You’ll find that these meatballs are have plenty of flavour so you’ll need to resist the temptation to pop them straight into your mouth from the tray. I say “resist”, but I do insist that the cook does a taste test before plating these up. You know, to check for seasoning… 😉

From a practical perspective, what I was leading to is that these would be great to pass around at a gathering. I’d probably have some kind of sauce on the side – ketchup, or even some of the tomato basil pasta sauce in this recipe.

But I must say that they are absolutely fantastic tossed through spaghetti with a simple homemade pasta sauce. It’s the same one I use in the Spinach Ricotta Cannelloni I shared last week.

What a sight. Hurry up dinner time! I’m in the mood for meatballs tonight! – Nagi x

Love Chicken meatballs? Try these!

• Cashew Chicken Meatballs

• Teriyaki Chicken Meatballs

• Vietnamese Meatballs – base recipe is pork but it’s so good with chicken too!

• Thai Meatballs – make these with chicken!

• Browse all meatball recipes

Chicken Meatballs
WATCH HOW TO MAKE IT

Chicken Meatballs recipe video!

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BAKED Chicken Meatballs with Spaghetti

Author: Nagi

Prep: 20 mins

Cook: 25 mins

Total: 45 mins

Mains

Western

4.96 from 22 votes

Servings4 - 5 people

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Recipe VIDEO above. Golden brown on the outside, soft and juicy on the inside, these Baked Chicken Meatballs are lip smackingly delicious! Pass them around with ketchup at a gathering or make Spaghetti and Meatballs! 

Ingredients

Meatballs:

• ▢ 500 g/1lb chicken mince (ground chicken), or turkey or pork (Note 1)
• ▢ 1/4 small white onion , grated into the bowl
• ▢ 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
• ▢ 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• ▢ 1 large garlic clove , minced
• ▢ 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley (or 2 tsp dried parsley or basil)
• ▢ 1 egg
• ▢ 1/4 tsp salt
• ▢ 1/2 tsp pepper
• ▢ Olive oil spray (or olive oil)

Pasta Sauce:

• ▢ 1 tbsp olive oil
• ▢ 1 garlic clove , finely chopped
• ▢ 3/4 small onion , finely chopped
• ▢ 800 g / 28 oz crushed tomato
• ▢ 1 cup / 250 ml water (swirl in tomato can to clean out)
• ▢ Handful basil leaves , torn, or 1 tsp dried herbs (e.g. Italian mix, oregano, thyme, basil)

Serving:

• ▢ 250 g/ 1/2 lb spaghetti or other long strand pasta of choice , cooked per packet
• ▢ Fresh basil , optional
• ▢ Parmesan cheese

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 200C/390F (standard) or 180C/350F (fan/convection).
• Place a rack on a tray, and spray the rack with oil.
• Place Meatball ingredients in a bowl, mix well. Scoop up a heaped tablespoon, roll into a ball and place on the rack. Repeat with remaining mixture - should make 25 - 30. Tip: spray hands with oil or wet lightly with water.
• Spray each ball well with oil, then bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Give 'em a squeeze and you'll see how soft they are!

Sauce:

• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and onion, cook for 2 - 3 minutes until translucent. Add tomato and water, stir then turn heat down to medium. Simmer for 5 - 10 minutes, then season to taste with salt and pepper and stir through basil (or use dried herbs).

Serving:

• Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling water. Drain then return pasta to the same pot.
• Add Sauce and meatballs, toss.
• Serve, garnished with fresh basil and parmesan.

Recipe Notes:

1. Chicken mince sold in supermarkets in packets can sometimes be quite watery which makes the meatball mixture hard to roll into balls. So check the packet - if there are pools of water, avoid it! If you go to a butcher, ask for thigh rather than breast - better flavour.

If your mixture is very wet, add a bit more breadcrumbs and/or refrigerate mixture for 30 minutes (this firms it up).

2. Nutrition per person, assuming 5 servings.

Nutrition Information:

Serving: 397gCalories: 537cal (27%)

Keywords: Baked meatballs, Chicken meatballs

Did you make this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Tag me on Instagram at @RecipeTinEats.

LIFE OF DOZER

So exhausted after a big beach session, he slept through meatballs….. though you’ll see in the video that I did wake him up for a treat! 😂

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