This is a healthy basil pesto chicken meatballs recipe that is not only easy but creamy and delicious. Perfect for keto diet recipes with a high fat cream sauce featuring bits of blue cheese. A chicken meatballs recipe that fits your macros and taste buds!
Who doesn’t love an easy meatballs recipe?
Not to mention incredible flavor and taste like nothing you have had before. My basil pesto chicken meatballs are out of this world!
Only healthy ingredients:
- Ground organic chicken
- Collagen packed bone broth
- Olive oil basil pesto
Setting out I wanted to create a chicken meatballs recipe that wasn’t only keto friendly but delicious and nutrition packed. Hence why I choose to use bone broth over traditional chicken stock. It has far more nutrients.
So many basil pesto sauces have undesirable oils in them. I plan to create my own very soon but for time being I searched for a store-bought basil pesto that uses olive oil. Rather than the more common soybean oil and canola oil ones we see.
Considering I am keto, I wanted to involve a cream sauce for my basil pesto chicken meatballs. I went all out!
What you have are chicken meatballs in a blue cheese cream sauce. Delicious? Of course it is!
I wasn’t always a huge fan of blue cheese but I knew of how popular it was. So, in creating tis recipe myself I wanted to make it so that the blue cheese crumbles were really subtle. As long as they brought a little flavor and it didn’t over power the recipe for people whom may not be fans. Yet, come through enough for the ones that love blue cheese.
Tips to make your basil pesto chicken meatballs
You would like to avoid them crumbling too much. This is where the collagen powder helps. Below are a few helpful tips as well:
- Don’t roll meatballs too large
- Set meatballs in a clockwise circle and turn them so. That way they will all brown evenly.
- Control temperature of pan. If they get too hot the parmesan cheese in the basil pesto will cause them to stick to the pan.
- Handle them with care. I turned mine using a stainless steel spatula. I knew prongs would be too much.
Is cream sauce keto?
The cream sauce for my basil pesto chicken meatballs are only heavy cream and blue cheese. Both of which are very keto friendly! You could even use coconut milk in the place of the heavy cream for a dairy-free option!
Does it fit my macros?
Take a look below at my nutrition label created via Cronometer. One serving is on 1g net carbs!
Basil Pesto Chicken Meatballs (Keto, Low Carb, Healthy)
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon course black pepper
- 1 scoop collagen powder
- 1/2 cup basil pesto
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 3/4 cup chicken bone broth
- 1/2 cup Heavy cream
- 1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (or sub for parmesan cheese)
Instructions
- Place ground chicken in bowl and mix in salt, pepper, collagen powder and basil pesto. Give it a good mix with hangs or spoon
- Using around a tablespoon amount roll chicken meatballs in hand. you should get around 24. Not too big you want a easy cook and not have them falling apart too much
- Using olive oil on a medium/ high heat in a frying dish place in rolled meatballs. Brown them a little for color. You have to remove some in order to get all of them browned depending on the size of your pan.
- After all are browned and you have added back any you had to remove from the pan pour in your chicken bone broth and reduce at least by half
- Lower heat to simmer. Now pour in your heavy cream and top off with blue cheese crumbles and allow to thicken. Once cream sauce has thicken remove from heat and serve
Notes
Reminding of helpful tips
- Don't roll meatballs too large
- Set meatballs in a clockwise circle and turn them so. That way they will all brown evenly.
- Control temperature of pan. If they get too hot the parmesan cheese in the basil pesto will cause them to stick to the pan.
- Handle them with care. I turned mine using a stainless steel spatula. I knew prongs would be too much.
