Air Fryer Parmesan Chicken Meatballs – A healthy recipe that’s simple to make, contains very little carbs and has a flavorful crispy crust. It’s the surprise breading that make these chicken meatballs taste so amazing, while still being healthy.
One of the things that I miss most when dieting is fried food, it’s not so much the flavor that I miss, as it is the crunch. There’s just nothing more satisfying than sinking your teeth into a piece of fried chicken or fried zucchini and hearing that crunch. Luckily, with an air fryer and my secret ingredient you can still get all that crunchy goodness without the fat or the carbs.
Air Fryer Parmesan Chicken Meatballs
Chicken: You can purchase chicken that is already ground up, or you can grind it yourself. If you have a food processor, it’s pretty easy to do using the steel blade. I prefer grinding it myself because it seems to hold together better when your shaping the chicken.
Pork Rinds: Pork rinds are one of the best ways to lower your carb intake while still being able to get a nice crunchy crust. If you don’t like pork rinds you can try using Parmesan cheese, almond meal, or coconut flour, the only thing is all of these options contain carbs.
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 large egg, beaten
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- ½ cup pork rinds, ground
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ½ cup pork rinds, ground
- Preheat Air Fryer to 400°F.
- In a large bowl, combine chicken, egg, cheese, pork rinds (1/2 cup), garlic, paprika, salt and pepper. Roll into 1½-inch balls.
- Roll the meatballs in the ground pork rinds.
- Coat the air fryer basket with cooking spray, add meatballs in a single layer and cook for 12 minutes at 400°F, turning once.
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These air fryer low carb chicken meatballs look fabulous. I love that they are air fried. I have never used an air fryer but it sounds wonderful. I’m going to have to look into getting one. Thank you for sharing at Snickerdoodle Create Bake Make.
I wasn’t sure if I would like an air fryer, but now that I have one I love it and use it all of the time.
I really need an airfryer. These look amazing! Thanks for sharing at the What’s for Dinner party. Can’t wait to see what you’ll bring next week! Have fantastic day!
I wasn’t sure if I was going to like airfryers, but now that I have one I don’t know what I would do without it.
Robin, I haven’t even thought about getting an air fryer, but now I am intrigued!
These look great and low carb too, what’s not to love? #happynow@_karendennis
These look great. Looks really tasty. 🙂 #happynowlinkup
These look ridiculously tasty.
I don’t have an air fryer (I already have way too many big kitchen gadgets) but I’m sure I could bake these in the oven. I just love meatballs of all kinds as evident by the number of recipes on my blog. Fiesta Friday party goers love meatballs too so we all thank you for sharing
Your Chicken Meatballs look delicious! Thanks so much for sharing your post with us at Full Plate Thursday, we have really enjoyed it. Hope you have a great day and come back soon!
Miz Helen
These look absolutely perfect. I just want to grab some of the meatballs now. Thanks for sharing this recipe at Fiesta Friday!
Thanks for the awesome recipe. Pinned and featured at the party this week. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. Linda
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tastier looking meatball! Sounds wonderful!
And they taste as good as they look.
I cannot wait to make this! Brilliant! I love my air fryer too – Don’t know if you’ve ever checked out Booger500US. She has a youtube channel dedicated to air fryer stuff.
Did you use a flavored pork rind or just plain?
I just used plain pork rinds, but flavored ones sound good too!
These were fantastic! Even my daughter, the super picky eater, loved them. Curious what the calories & nutritional information is on these?
I’m glad that your family liked them. Here is the nutritional value for each meatball. If you want to find the nutritional value of a recipe, you can use the SparkRecipes Calculator.
Calories 74.5
Total Fat 3.6 g
Saturated Fat 1.3 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.2 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.5 g
Cholesterol 31.3 mg
Sodium 146.2 mg
Potassium 48.6 mg
Total Carbohydrate 0.1 g
Dietary Fiber 0.0 g
Sugars 0.0 g
Protein 10.1 g
Hi I don’t use pork rinds Or cheese what can
I substitute it with. What temperature do u cook them at?
Thank you
Rhonda
Any type of breading will work and as for the cheese you can just eliminate it. Making these changes will definitely change how they taste and the amount of carbs will also change. They will be cooked at 400°F.
Do you do 1 Cup total of the Pork Rinds? 1/2 cup for the bowl and 1/2 cup to role them in?
In a large bowl, combine chicken, egg, cheese, pork rinds (1/2 cup), garlic, paprika, salt and pepper. Roll into 1½-inch balls.
Roll the meatballs in the ground pork rinds.
The ingredients just show 1/2 cup and wanted to make sure!
Thank you!
It is 1 cup total, the ingredients for the meatballs requires 1/2 cup and the breading (what you roll them in) requires another 1/2 cup. I hope this clears it up! ~Enjoy
Thank you! Helps if I read the whole ingredients I see the added 1/2 cup at the end!
LOL – I do the same thing, more often than I care to admit!
Do these freeze well?
Yes they do! I usually freeze up a few dozen at a time.
Thank you so much, gonna cook them now
Enjoy!!
Do you dip these in anything? Or pair them with any keto friendly tomato sauce? Haven’t tasted them yet so not sure what type of sauce will go with. 🙂
I usually cover them in pasta sauce, but I also like to dip them in ranch or a honey mustard sauce.
Do you freeze them before they’re cooked and then thaw to cook?
If they are frozen, I’ll thaw them before cooking them in the air fryer.
I don’t eat pork, what is something I can substitute the pork rinds with?
Nuts are a low-carb option for breading.
Made this tonight and they were delicious!
We did feel that they were a tad salty but that could be just a personal opinion.
We dipped them in G Hughes Sugar Free California Style BBQ sauce.
We will definitely add these to the rotation.