Instant Pot No-Fail Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
Just imagine...being a working parent...planning out the perfect (or so you thought) weeknight meal prep plan, and then it just kind of all falls apart when you end up working later than expected. What a bummer, I know! But is it really? The best laid plans often fail but then it gives a wonderful opportunity to find out new interesting things!
Big disclaimer here, I had planned to make a beautiful kid-friendly one-pot dish with ground chicken...BUT...we ended up having take-out with the added bonus of being able to convert my Perfect Easy Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Meatballs to Instant Pot No-Fail Buffalo Chicken Meatballs! With very few alterations I was in business for dinner another night this week along with some quick green beans for a side dish! The extra time afforded me the chance to cut my time in half at least going forward with a family favorite recipe!
If you feel as though you may be seeing double you may be, but in the most delicious way!
This recipe is a family favorite and in the Instant Pot it's a weeknight homerun! Forget the two hours or so in the crockpot, because I was able to cook this in less than hour with no flavor loss, and get a few extra winks for sleep! 🙂
Combine into a mixing bowl the ground chicken, onion powder, garlic powder, eggs, seasoned salt, Blue Cheese or Ranch Dressing, water, breadcrumbs (for gluten-free substitute with gluten-free breadcrumbs), chives, and cayenne pepper. Mix it all together until well combined.
Form the ground chicken mixture into 1-½ inch balls. I put some olive oil on my hands as it is a sticky mixture so that it would make it easier to work with. There are two ways to brown your meatballs.
One way is to set your Instant Pot to the saute function, and brown in olive oil in batches which would take longer than the second way. When I make this recipe I cover two cookie sheets with foil, set my oven to broil, and then broil for ten minutes. Not only is it quicker but it's easy clean-up!
While you are waiting for the chicken meatballs to brown in the oven, set your Instant Pot to the saute function. Melt your butter, and then hit the cancel button. Stir in until combined the Buffalo style hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and ½ cup of water.
Add the chicken meatballs to the Instant Pot place lid on Instant Pot, and close. Cook on the poultry setting for 15 minutes, and then do a 10 minute Natural Pressure Release for 10 minutes.
Instant Pot No Fail Buffalo Chicken Meatballs are great alone drizzled with Blue Cheese or Ranch dressing at a potluck, served with rice, or with potatoes. This is a great meal prep option, and so doable!
If you like this recipe you may enjoy Instant Pot Beef Sirloin Tips with Mushroom Gravy, or Instant Pot Pork Egg Roll in a Bowl!
Recipe
Instant Pot No Fail Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
- 2 pounds ground chicken
- 2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 4 tablespoon blue cheese or ranch dressing
- 4 tablespoon water
- 1 tablespoon chives
- 1 cup Italian Seasoned breadcrumbs can substitute with Gluten-Free
- 10 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 cup Frank's Buffalo Style Hot Sauce
- 2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- Combine ground chicken, onion and garlic powder, eggs, seasoned salt, blue cheese or ranch dressing, water, chives, and breadcrumbs. Mix together well.
- Roll into roughly 1-½ inch balls. Broil in oven for ten minutes. Cover the cookie sheets with foil or parchment paper for easy clean up.
- Set the Instant Pot to the saute function and melt butter. Turn off and add the hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and ½ cup of water.
- Add the chicken meatballs to the Instant Pot, close the lid. Cook on the Poultry setting for 15 minutes, and then do a 10-minute natural pressure release.
- Serve immediately, or store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Hi! I made these meatballs for the first time yesterday and they turned out delicious! The meatballs were moist and flavorful, I made them as written but just added some diced onion I had leftover from another dish. The sauce was a little thin so I took out the meatballs, turned on the saute function and added a cornstarch slurry which thickened it up in no time at all. Everyone loved the flavors and I will definitely be using this recipe in the future! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
The addition of the onion sounds delicious! I’m so glad you enjoyed them. We do like our sauce a little on the thin side, but you can definitely thicken it up the way you did if you prefer it thicker.
The minute I saw buffalo with chicken I knew I had to make this recipe. Now, unfortunately I don't have an Instant Pot but I followed the ingredients and everything else. Let me tell you the taste was fantastic!! We all loved it and now we can't wait to make it again.
I'm so glad you all enjoyed it! I know we love it in our family, but it's so great to hear that you all did too!
What a great idea to broil the meatballs instead of frying them. Love the easy clean up and time savings on that alone!! I've also been looking for more recipes that use my insta pot. You're totally speaking my language here.
Thanks, and yes the broiler definitely cuts down the work and the mess. Hope you love them!
I love Buffalo anything and everything. <3 This is perfect timing, since the super bowl is right around the corner and what's a super bowl without snacks? But after the holidays, I'm so so so ready for lightened up versions of everything. So this is great! And I love that they're made in the IP. I need more IP recipes in my life.
What a gorgeous recipe! Love the healthier protein choice over beef, so we can eat MORE 🙂 I really love it that these are buffalo style because there isn't a more quintessential game-day flavor in my mind. Thanks for sharing this number...they're not going to last long when they hit the table!
You’re so welcome! These will definitely be a great game-day dish, and probably a big family favorite!
The colour on those meatballs! It looks delicious! I'm definitely a fan of blue cheese sauce and will be dipping my entire meatball in the sauce. I love your method of broiling the meatballs real quick to get the browning on the meatballs, it's definitely much faster than using sautee mode!
Thanks! Broiling makes it so easy, and it’s a lot less messy than sautéing! 😉 Hope you enjoy them!
Oh my gosh you literally described me every day from Monday - Thursday. I always have great plans and then am alllwwaaayyyss late - but it's mainly because of traffic. But my back up plans never produce something this delicious!! Hooray for no-fail meatballs - adding these ingredients to my shopping list for this week!!
I've had my careful designed weekly meal plans fall apart too, and I can definitely suck unless you take it as an opportunity to try something new or reinvent one of your existing recipes. I love that you did just that with these buffalo chicken meatballs. They look delicious and super easy to make; just the perfect thing for a busy week.
You bet! Delicious with just a side of broccoli! 🙂
I just got my first Instant Pot -- and these gorgeous meatballs were one of the first things I made. I appreciate that you've actually said that it's easier to cook and brown the meatballs in the oven. You're so right. I've been really disappointed in the saute function on the Instant Pot for browning -- especially if you have a large quantity of meat -- you have to do it in several batches -- which doesn't save time at all. This makes so much more sense. Thanks for another great recipe!
I'm so excited that you tried out my meatballs, and loved them so much! Yes, I agree broiling them is a timesaver and a lot less hassle.
I love using ground chicken to make meatballs. These look perfect for pasta, stuffing into subs...or as an appetizer. I don't have an Instant Pot, so I will adapt this for my pressure cooker. I know they will turn out delicious.
They are great served different ways! You'll love these, and the recipe should work unchanged either in the traditional pressure cooker. 🙂
This is excellent We are going to make these for supper tonight. Thanks again for looking into this. 🙂
You're very welcome! If you have any issues please don't hesitate to share so I can make improvements. 🙂
Any suggestions if my instant pot doesn't have a poultry setting?
In doing some research it seems the default for the Poultry button is High Pressure so using the manual will work. So you should be okay with the same cook times. I will test a batch though, and then update the post for either setting once I confirm. Thank you so much for the feedback!