These Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Chicken Meatballs are the perfect, easy-to-make protein you can batch prep / make in bulk and use throughout the week a variety of different delicious ways. With so much versatility and being gluten and grain-free, keto-friendly and very easy to make dairy-free these will definitely become a staple for your family!
Meal prepping has been making life so much easier lately. I’m not a person who can eat the same thing three or four days in a row. I need variety! Also, as the seasons are changing, I’ve been craving some lighter foods and lots of vegetables. I’m not sure where my original inspiration came for these Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Chicken Meatballs, but I am glad that vision came and I think you are going to love this new recipe!
Ground chicken hasn’t always been a go-to for protein prep but for whatever reason I have been experimenting with it and I have fallen in love with the versatility of it. Ground chicken is such a lean protein that I knew I had to incorporate some type of fat and veggies so that it wouldn’t dry out and would have enough flavor to make a meal satisfying. The flavor power that roasted peppers pairs so perfectly with goat cheese and ground chicken.
Featuring additional fat with the lean protein in these Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Chicken Meatballs it made sense to incorporate a cheese to bring balance and avoid dry meatballs. Goat cheese is more easily digestible for a lot of people as compared to cow’s dairy and goat cheese has a nice creamy tang to it and pairs so nicely with roasted peppers. You can also swap for feta if you have that on hand or any other cheese. For those that cannot tolerato any dairy I swapped the goat cheese for nutritional yeast and you still get a hint of that cheesy umami flavor that we are looking for.
For seasoning I wanted it to taste fresh and light and what better way to achieve that than using fresh herbs. I recently bought one of those basil plants from the grocery store and put it in a small planter and it’s been a month and it is still alive!
Fresh basil smells like heaven especially when finely chopped. Fresh parsley offers a nice bite and is a nice compliment to all of the ingredients in this recipe. To ensure that the meatballs are flavorful I added an additional tablespoon of Italian seasoning because why not, right? As a reminder this is a meal prep protein recipe so our measurements may seem like a lot, but we are using three pounds of chicken. Trust us, you do not want to forgo any of these amazing flavors. If you don’t have fresh herbs, you can totally use all dried herbs in its place.
We used one egg for our binding agent as well as olive oil for some healthy fats to help keep everything together and help get the outside a little crisp. With ground chicken, it can dry out a little so to help with that we grated one zucchini to get some extra veggies hidden in there as well as add some moisture. We finely grated the zucchini and then squeezed out the extra moisture from it with a paper towel. If you don’t want to grate the zucchini you can dice it but you want to make sure that you keep the size small.
In a large bowl, we mixed everything together. Using your hands makes mixing a lot easier for this part. And now we scoop! I have two sizes of scoops. A cookie scoop and a large ice cream scoop. I really like the cookie scoop size because you can pop the meatballs as a little snack, add them to a salad, use in zoodles and pesto, or in a lettuce wrap. I love the big scoop for an open face meatball sandwich on a sourdough roll. It is up to you want size you want to make. You really don’t need a scoop though; you can always use a spoon and roll in your hands.
If using a cookie scoop you will get about three dozen. If you use a large ice cream scoop you will get about 10-12. You can always do a mixture of both small and larger meatballs so it will add to your variety for meal prep. My favorite part about this recipe is that you can eat these with breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
The meatballs are light a fresh that changing out what you pair them with can make them seem like a completely new meal.
How to Serve Your Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Chicken Meatballs
- Over your favorite Big F*ckin’ Salad
- Make mini meatballs as an appetizer, serve with toothpicks and your favorite sauce
- Over pasta, rice or riced veggies, quinoa or veggie bowls
- Add to a lettuce wrap, tortilla or your favorite bread / roll
- Top with red sauce and melted cheese for a meatball parmigiana, of sorts
- Make mini meatballs and drop into some bone broth, add your fave veggies and noodles or zoodles for a fun soup
- Crumble and add to a breakfast frittata or serve alongside egg bites
Roasted Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Chicken Meatballs {Gluten-free, Grain-free, Keto options for Dairy-free)
Ingredients
- 3 pounds ground chicken, you can also use ground turkey
- 1-2 roasted red peppers, roughly chopped
- 1 small zucchini, shredded, squeeze out extra moisture
- 1 egg
- 1 cup goat choose, for diary free use ½ cup nutritional yeast
- ¼ cup white onion, finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Using a cookie scoop, scoop balls of the mixture and place on a cookie sheet 1 inch apart.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes
- If using for weekly meal prep, all the meatballs to fully cool then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator up to 5 days.
- Use the meatballs as the main protein for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You can also use as a protein for a salad, in pasta, in a lettuce wrap, however you want to enjoy them!
Notes
