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Cajun chicken meatballs in a creamy sauce with tons of onions, garlic, peppers, and mushrooms. Serve these meatballs on top of egg noodles or with crusty bread and a salad. It is so delish!
Cajun Chicken MEATBALLS.
We’re talking about the perfect dish.
Tasty protein rolling around in a cream sauce speckled with spices and it is jus the tastiest treat for your mouth.
When I want change things up a bit, I’ll opt for homemade chicken meatballs. You can use chicken thighs or chicken breasts for the ground chicken mixture. And then pan-searing the meatballs locks in all those juices and ultimately, this dish is ideal to serve over buttered noodles for maximum comfort, cheddar mashed potatoes, rice, roasted broccoli or other vegetables, with no knead focaccia so soak up all that sauce or any other way you see fit.
We’ve had a number of readers tell use they love this recipe see below ⤵️
Omg this was so good. It turned out better than I expected to even my picky husband loved it. Lol. I served it with some egg noodles and garlic bread. I definitely will make this again!
Ingredients for Cajun Chicken Meatballs
- Cajun Seasoning: this typically is a mix or ingredients and generally contains garlic powder, cayenne pepper, thyme, amongst other ingredients.
- Minced Garlic: adds plenty of flavor
- Panko: helps absorb all the excess moisture from the ground chicken
- Egg: used as a binding ingredient that adds structure and stability to the meatballs
- Parmesan Cheese: adds plenty of umami
- Fresh Parsley: we add this for color and freshness
- Ground Chicken: you can even take boneless chicken pieces and make your own ground chicken. You just need this attachment for your stand mixer.
- Olive Oil: to cook the meatballs in before we create the sauce
- Onions: acts as the aromatics and gives the sauce plenty of flavor
- Bell peppers: feel free to use whatever color you like here. I typically use red bell peppers
- Flour: helps thicken the sauce
- Mushrooms: added for more vegetables
- Chicken Broth: creates the cream sauce
- Sour Cream: thickens and gives the sauce a bit of richness. You could swap this for heavy cream but I’d start with ¼ cup and work up from there as needed
- Basil or more parsley: anything thats green and used as a garnish will work here!
Recipe Tip
Whenever you’re making meatballs, combine the ingredients that bind the meatballs in a bowl before adding in the meat. This allows all the flavors to mix evenly without the fear of overworking the meat.
Cajun Chicken Meatballs in Tasty Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 2 tablespoons low sodium cajun seasoning plus 1 teaspoon
- 4 cloves minced garlic divided
- ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 large egg
- ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley plus more for serving
- 1 ¼ pounds ground chicken or turkey
Sauce:
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup chopped onions yellow or red
- ½ cup red or yellow bell peppers minced
- ½ cup mushrooms minced
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 ½ cups chicken broth preferably low sodium
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons basil or fresh parsley chopped, for serving
Instructions
- MIX: In a medium mixing bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of cajun seasoning, 2 cloves minced garlic, and all the other ingredients except the ground chicken. Add ½ teaspoon of black pepper and mix using a fork. The mixture will resemble a coarse breading. Add the ground chicken and mix until *just* combined. Do not overwork the meat. Roll into 18-22 meatballs. Mine were about 1½ tablespoons each.2 tablespoons low sodium cajun seasoning, 4 cloves minced garlic, ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs, 1 large egg, ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese, 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1 ¼ pounds ground chicken
- COOK: Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs to the skillet but do not overcrowd the pan. Cook in batches if they don't all fit. Sear the meatballs for 4-5 minutes, flipping to brown all sides evenly. Remember you want to just brown the outside and not cook them all the way through. Remove meatballs to a plate. Repeat until all the meatballs are cooked.3-4 tablespoons olive oil
- SAUCE: Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan along with the remaining garlic and the onion and sauté for 2 minutes or until the onion begins to turn translucent. This will help unstick all the brown bits from the meatballs and flavor the sauce. Add the peppers and mushrooms and continue to cook until they soften, about 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour and the remaining teaspoon of cajun seasoning over the veggies and push the veggies around the pan to coat evenly and cook for about a minute or until the flour starts to deepen in color.½ cup chopped onions, ½ cup red or yellow bell peppers, ½ cup mushrooms, 2 tablespoons flour
- FINISH: Stir the mixture as you pour in the chicken broth. Lower the heat, whisk in the sour cream until it dissolves completely. Allow sauce to come back to a gentle simmer before lowering the heat and letting the sauce thicken, about 6-12 minutes. When the sauce is halfway there, add the chicken meatballs and let cook for 5 minutes. Check the internal temperature with a meat thermometer for doneness. Sprinkle with the parsley or basil before serving.1 ½ cups chicken broth, ½ cup sour cream, 2 tablespoons basil or fresh parsley
Notes
-
- Leftovers: can be kept in an airtight container for up to 4 days in the fridge.
- Sauce: The sauce will thicken as it sits so i’d advise leaving it a little thinner if you aren’t planning on serving this right away. If the sauce thickens too much you can always thin it out with a little water or broth. Serve over egg noodles or with garlic bread and a salad.
- Substitutes: This recipe has only been tested with sour cream but I do think heavy cream would make a good substitute. I haven’t tried it with greek yogurt so I can’t say whether that would work.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
has anyone tried half ground chicken & half ground turkey?
Yes! It works great with her meatball recipes. I like a higher fat content in the turkey and the balance between the two is really delicious.
Tasty sauce recipe,did not use cajun bc some ppl are allergic nd mushrooms I lefted outbc(i do not like them)I added broccoli to my dish bc it goes excellent with the sauce nd rice which I substitute yellow or brown rice,either good to me.I figured the parmesan will give out the saltiness in the dish.I would still add my side dish toss salad to this meal.Overall,whatever sides you use that you like,as long as it blends honey you can not go wrong.If I wasn’t making the sauce,I would use a can or 2 cream ofchicken
Delicious! Served over mashed potatoes. Sour cream was so good but i’ll try with cream next time. Thank you!
I made these chicken meatballs a few months back {sorry about the delayed comment} and I have to say that they were very good. So good that I am making them again tonight. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe.
Omg this was so good. It turned out better than I expected to even my picky husband loved it. Lol. I served it with some egg noodles and garlic bread. I definitely will make this again!
Oh my word…. What a delicious recipe!! The texture of the meatballs was divine and the sauce was rich and luscious. It was a bit too spicy for my son (I loved the heat!), but he agreed the meatballs were perfect and the texture of the sauce was amazing. I’ll be making this again but turning into more of an Italian-type sauce with garlic, oregano and basil next time. One of the best recipes I’ve ever made off Pinterest! Cannot wait to make it again! And cannot wait to try more littlespicejar recipes! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Made this tonight. Hubby is a big “Cajun Anything” fan. I do hate it when someone makes so many changes to a recipe that it doesn’t resemble the original. But I don’t think I went too far off.
I am new to Keto and want to find recipes that didn’t make me feel like I was missing out on yummy food. I did make this Keto friendly by using Flax Seed Meal for Breadcrumbs and instead of All Purpose Flour for the sauce I used Almond Flour and a /4 teaspoon of Xantham Gum as a sauce thickener. I decided to add a bit of a twist and run 8oz of Andoulle Sausage through the food processor and add it to the ground chicken. (Hubby likes things a bit spicy.) Other than these changes I followed recipe as written.
This was Very Tasty! and we will add it to our regular rotation. Thanks for the great ideas and stay away from the Garlic Bread! LOL.
I fell in love with these meatballs the first time I made them. It is my new “favorite” recipe to make. Can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved it! The flavor is AWESOME!
We really loved this dish. It had a lot of flavor and was easy to make. The only thing that I did, was to add some finely chopped portobello mushroom and grated garlic into the meatball mixture. Fantastic! I served it over wide egg noodles.
Very very good. I made it with 2 lb of ground chicken because they were sold in one-pound packages and it made a lot which is great because we could have it for lunch the next day. This would be perfect for parties, but it was great served over pasta. Having used two pounds of the meat I increased all of the ingredients. The Cajun spice I cut back just a bit as I had little ones eating it but it was just perfect. I also used seasoned panko and added some of the parmesan to the sauce.
How long and what Temp would you Bake the Meatballs? I’m not a fan of Frying, I Burn the food or Myself..
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I feel you on that one! I haven’t tried it for this recipe but my best guess would be 475F for roughly 5-6 minutes. They may need a little less time in the sauce (or more) so you’ll have to add them as required. Hope you enjoy it fully!
The best meatballs I have ever made!! I used Greek yogurt for the sour cream and turkey instead of chicken. It worked great!
for the minced red pepper is it bell pepper or something spicier?
I used a red bell pepper but you could use something spicier too if you’d like!
Luscious recipe. Glad you shared this recipe. Thank you.
These meatballs were delicious! My cajun seasoning has salt in in so I didn’t use the full amount! Will make again, loved the peppers, yummy recipe!
I’m always looking for ground chicken recipes and this one if FULL of flavor! I have a jar of Cajun flavoring that I love so using it in this recipe was the bomb! The chix broth & flour makes a nice gravy and the cream at the end makes the sauce velvety and rich! This recipe is a KEEPER!
This is delicious, but definitely use low sodium ingredients!! I love salt so I didn’t and it was very salty. I did substitute heavy cream for sour cream. Will make these again !
I really like this recipe. Thank you so much for sharing it – putting it on my soon-to-do list 😉
I tried to substitute Greek yoghurt for the sour cream in the sauce and it did NOT thicken up! Trial and error however I will definitely be making these again as the meatballs themselves were delicious!
I just made these for dinner and they are so good! Packed with flavor and I love the creamy sauce. Thanks for sharing this recipe!