Butter Chicken Meatballs
Tender chicken meatballs in a dreamy tomato curry sauce that will have everyone licking their plates clean! Bonus- it can easily be made completely dairy free, but you’d never know it!
Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Keyword comfort food, curry, dairy free, dinner, gluten free, healthy, meatballs, refined-sugar free
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 4
Ingredients
Meatballs-
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 2 medium carrots sliced
- ¼ cup red onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 4 t olive oil divided
- 1 t salt
- ¼-½ cup cilantro chopped, depending on preference
Sauce-
- 3 tablespoons butter or coconut oil for dairy free
- 1 yellow onion diced
- 1 jalapeno finely diced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 t salt
- 2 T chili powder
- 1 ½ t cumin
- 1 t turmeric
- 1 t ground ginger
- ¼ t cinnamon
- ¼ t ground pepper
- ¼ t cayenne pepper
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1 6- oz can tomato paste
- 1 14.5 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 14 oz can coconut milk full fat
- Toppings- cilantro lime wedges, plain greek yogurt/sour cream
Instructions
Meatballs-
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Place your ground chicken in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.
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Add your carrots, red onion, and garlic to a food processor or blender. Pulse until everything is finely diced, but not mushy. Alternatively, you could chop everything into a very fine dice, but I like the consistency that the food processor gives here.
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Heat 2 teaspoons of the olive oil in a large saute pan on medium high heat. Add your pulsed veggies, along with the salt, and saute for 5-6 minutes, until softened.
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Add the veggies, along with your desired amount of cilantro (I like the full ½ cup amount!) to your ground chicken and mix well.
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Shape into 2” balls. Heat the remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil in your saute pan, and add the meatballs. Saute for 3-4 minutes on medium high heat, then turn over and saute for another 3-4 minutes. Remove from the pan. Don’t worry that they aren’t all the way cooked; they’ll finish in the sauce and become nice and tender!
Sauce-
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Heat your butter (or coconut oil) in your saute pan over medium high heat.
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Saute your onion for 3-4 minutes, then add in your jalapeno and garlic. Season with salt, then saute for about 4 minutes more.
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Add in your spices, and saute for about 1 minute, until fragrant and well combined.
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Stir in the lemon juice, tomato paste and sauce, and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then drop the heat to low to simmer.
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Carefully stir in your meatballs and simmer for 5-8 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through. Serve over rice, and garnish with toppings of your choice. Also great with roasted cauliflower!
