Chicken Meatballs with Pesto and Zoodles

These chicken meatballs were a huge hit with our whole family that we paired with pesto and zoodles!

Another family friendly recipe, these turkey meatballs!

Pesto, zoodles, and chicken meatballs make the perfect combo for this simple dinner!

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This meal gives us our craving for pasta without all the extra carbs! Zoodles are so delicious and easy to make!

We love pesto, especially in the summertime! We will take some help from the grocery store by using store bought pesto, but we try to find one that has the best and most pure ingredients. We dress it up by adding our own fresh basil!

Chicken meatballs are a great twist on a classic. They are full of flavor and so tender. They don’t dry out and when in the air fryer, they have such a good crisp without having to fry them in oil!

Our whole family loved this meal! We just made the kids regular pasta and they loved the meatballs! Love a family friendly meal!

INGREDIENTS:

Meatballs:

• 1 LB ground chicken

• pinch of salt + pepper

• 1 tsp onion powder

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1 tsp dried basil

• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

• 1 tsp italian seasoning

• 1 cup almond flour (depending on how the mixture feels, add a bit more, if the mixture feels sticky)

• 1 egg

Other Ingredients:

• Favorite pesto (we take some help from the store and use a jar, but we have made our own before too, either works!)

• A handful of chopped fresh basil

• 2 medium zucchini

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare the meatballs by combining all the meatball ingredients in a bowl

2. Form into balls a little larger than a golf ball size

3. Preheat the air fryer to 400 degrees

4. Spray the bottom of the air fryer with a little bit of cooking spray

5. Put the meatballs in and spray the tops of the meatballs with cooking spray

   • Works best in 2 batches so that there is more room for them to cook evenly

6. Cook for about 15-17 mins, depending on how crisp/browned you like (temperature needs to be 165 internally)

7. Wash the zucchini and cut off the top and bottom

8. Spiralize the zucchini then sprinkle with salt and let sit for at least 15 mins to draw out moisture

9. Squeeze out the zucchini and pat as dry as possible

10. In a saute pan on low heat, add the pesto sauce, chopped fresh basil, and cooked meatballs

    • Coat the meatballs in the sauce so they absorb the pesto as they heat up

11. When sauce and meatballs are heated through, push the meatballs to the side of the pan, turn the heat up to medium, and add the dried out zucchini noodles

12. Cook for about 5 mins, stirring so that the noodles don’t stick

    • We like our zoodles to still have a crispness and bite to them, so we don’t cook for too long

13. Serve the noodles in a bowl and top with the meatballs and extra pesto sauce

14. ENJOY!

This is a nice meal to make for company because you can make a lot and you can prep a lot ahead of time. We made the meatballs at lunch time and put them in the fridge, then heated them back up before serving and they were perfect!

You could definitely do this with regular pasta too! We don’t miss pasta with having zoodles and it’s a great way to get more veggies in!

I hope you and your family love this chicken meatball recipe as much as we do! Let me know if you give it a try!

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