Buffalo chicken meatballs: Stuffed with blue cheese and baked in a bath of buffalo sauce, these meatballs are the perfect food for game day. Put them on a roll with blue cheese crumbles for a buffalo chicken meatball sandwich or serve them with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

Guys, how crappy has this winter been so far?  I mean really.  No snow, below zero temps, and now white knuckle-inducing icing follow by the next great flood sort of rain yesterday.  Seriously.

Let me first tell you about the icing.  And then these buffalo chicken meatballs.

But first let me preface this story by telling you that it’s two or three times a year that Kyle suggests something fun for us to do outside the house. It’s just who he is: introverted, homebody-ish. I don’t fault him for it. Hell, I’m exactly the same way if we’re being honest here. But I almost literally jump at his suggestions when they do come.

It also means that I do 98% of the planning of our activities but that’s neither here nor there.

So Saturday night, he suggested we check out an indoor flea market nearby on Sunday morning. We fell in love with perusing the abundant flea markets that fleck the Maine coast when we’re there, looking for old stuff we can give new life to, but unless you can find an indoor event, this activity is reserved for the warmer months.  We thought winter “junking” would be fun!

We got on the road early yesterday, planned for a quick diner breakfast first near the flea market, and ended up in the middle of a freezing rain event on the interstate that scared us half to death. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with freezing rain: when temps and surfaces are below 32° F, rain freezes on contact with the surfaces.  It happens to trees, cars, walkways, driveways, and yes roads, especially those that haven’t been treated with sand or salt and that are not heavily traveled.

We headed west towards Danbury on a wet and slushy road (normal) until the highway was closed about 5 minutes into the trip, crossed the median to return home because the next exit was treacherously far (my rule-following self was freaking out), and ended up on a complete sheet of ice (not normal).

Traffic in that direction had been stopped about ¼ mile behind us so there were no cars around, thankfully, because we slid all over that road, white knuckling the wheel (him), console, and door (both me).

Once regaining control of the car and after not sliding in the ditch as did another car further up the road, we eased our way at 10 mph to the next exit, about ½ mile away, got off and stuffed our faces with cheese omelets, hash browns, bacon, toast, and hot coffee at a local diner.

Stress eating at its best.

We waited until the temps warmed a little (they did) and the plows dropped some sand (they did not, we found out) before returning home. Ugh, it was such a harrowing experience but it could have been much worse, as was evidenced by the 20+ car pile-up that happened in eastern CT.

Soooo…back to these buffalo chicken meatballs!

You know that we’re not football fans so while we were probably the only house in New England not watching the Patriots, these meatballs would have fit in perfectly at any of those other houses.

Regardless, we LOVE buffalo chicken recipes like these egg rolls and this pizza. And these meatballs hit the spot in our house as the rain pounded against the windows and we had a quiet (cable-free!) night in front of the fire.

They were so simple to make too, definitely easy enough for a weeknight meal for us in the future.  We stuffed a little hunk of blue cheese inside each meatball, quickly browned them, and then baked them off, bathing in buffalo sauce.  We dipped them in blue cheese dressing and snacked on a few oven fries on the side for dinner.

Then earlier today, I finished off the leftovers over shredded cabbage on a soft brioche bun topped with dressing and extra blue cheese.  Glorious buffalo chicken meatballs – perfect winter food, game day food, still-recovering-from-a-stressful-drive food.

Want other buffalo chicken recipe ideas for game day?

layered buffalo chicken nachos with creamy gorgonzola sauce
buffalo chicken salad with creamy avocado ranch dressing

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Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

Yield: about 20 meatballs

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Buffalo chicken meatballs make the perfect game day food! Stuffed with blue cheese and baked in a bath of buffalo sauce, you can put them on a roll with blue cheese crumbles for a buffalo chicken meatball sandwich or serve them with blue cheese dressing for dipping.

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Ingredients

• 1 - 1 ¼ lbs ground chicken
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1 tsp onion powder/granulated onion
• ½ tsp ground pepper
• 3 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced, plus extra for garnish
• 2 oz crumbled blue cheese (optional)
• Vegetable oil
• 1 - 1 ½ cups buffalo sauce
• ½ cup blue cheese dressing

Instructions

1. Mix the ground chicken, egg, panko, celery salt, onion powder, pepper, and scallions together in a medium bowl. Form the mixture into about 20 meatballs, pressing a thumbnail-size piece of blue cheese into the center of each ball, and wrapping the mix around the cheese to cover completely.
2. Preheat oven to 400° F. Add about ½ cup oil to the bottom of a heavy 10-inch skillet and heat the skillet over medium heat until the oil starts to ripple. Carefully add half of the meatballs to the skillet and lightly brown them on all sides, about 2-3 minutes total. Transfer the meatballs to a plate and repeat with the remaining meatballs, adding additional oil first if the pan is too dry. Transfer the meatballs to the plate and pour off all of the oil. Off the heat, return the meatballs to the pan and pour the buffalo sauce over the meatballs, turning them in the sauce to coat.
3. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake the meatballs for 10 minutes until fully cooked. Serve in the skillet (or transfer to a serving platter), sprinkle with extra scallions with blue cheese dressing on the side for dipping. Alternatively, slide the meatballs onto some buns or sub rolls, topped with shredded cabbage or lettuce and smother with dressing and extra blue cheese.

Notes

adapted from Tablespoon

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• 
  Lodge 12 Inch Cast Iron Skillet
• 
  Pyrex Glass Mixing Bowl Set (3-Piece)

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