Use your slow cooker to make these easy, drool-worthy, gluten-free, Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs
Jump to RecipeIf necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness must be it's grumpy old aunt. With necessity your inner warrior kicks into high gear, with laziness your inner grouch takes over and does everything it can to avoid extra steps such as trips to the market or dirtying too many dishes.
These chicken teriyaki meatballs were created out out of sheer laziness.. The result? I accidentally made gluten free chicken meatballs that were delicious!
How To Make Gluten Free Chicken Meatballs:
- These chicken meatballs are made of ground chicken, Chex cereal crumbs, eggs, soy sauce (or gluten free alternative) and spices.
- To make Chex cereal crumbs, you can either place the cereal into a zip closure bag and crush them with a rolling pin or you can place them in a food processor. A small processor, such as Nutri-Bullet would work well here. Just be sure not to over process the Chex. The goal is to process just enough to achieve bread crumb consistency, not flour consistency.
- The ingredients are easy to mix together, but if you haven't worked with ground chicken before, be careful - it is different than ground beef and turkey. Ground chicken can get mushy if you over work it causing it to have trouble holding the shape of a meatball.
- The secret to making this recipe work is to mix the ingredients together and then refrigerate for half an hour prior to forming meatballs.
- Using a small ice cream or meatball scoop to pull just the right amount of the mixture out of the bowl for each meatball helps as well.
How to make Lazy Chicken Teriyaki Meatball sauce
- This sauce consists of water, corn starch, honey, garlic, soy sauce (or gluten free alternative) and sesame oil.
- To save having to wash yet another bowl, this mixture can be made right in your slow cooker while your chicken meatballs are chilling.
- Start by adding cold water and corn starch to your slow cooker. Turn it up to high and whisk these two ingredients together.
- Add in honey, garlic, soy sauce (or gluten free soy alternative) and sesame oil .
- If you are looking to keep it gluten free, click here for some alternatives to traditional soy sauce.
- Any slow cooker 3.5 quarts or larger should work. However, a Crockpot Casserole, or a larger slow cooker with more cooking surface is best because there is more opportunity for the individual meatballs to brown.
Bringing it all together
- After the chicken mixture has had a chance to chill, remove from fridge and use ice cream/meatball scoop to form into equally sized meatballs.
- Turn slow cooker down to low at this point.
- As you form each meatball place it in to the sauce in the slow cooker.
- When all meatballs are in the slow cooker, spoon sauce from the bottom over them. Alternatively, if you are available, you can open up the slow cooker and turn the meatballs over half way through cooking (this is a purely optional step).
- Cook on low for 3-4 hours and then switch to warm until ready to serve.
- You can test to make sure your meatballs are done by using a meat thermometer. Chicken meatballs are ready to be served when they reach an internal temperature of 165ºF
- Freezer friendly! This recipe should make about 55-60 medium sized meatballs (about 2" in diameter).
Suggestions For Serving:
Lazy Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs are delicious served over brown or white rice or cauliflower rice. But the fan favorite has been serving them with rice noodles.
Substitutes:
- To keep this gluten free, I used crushed Chex cereal and Braggs Liquid Aminos in place of bread crumbs and soy sauce. However, Panko crumbs would make a perfect substitution for the rice based Chex.
- Not a fan of teriyaki? No problem, you can substitute with a savory or sweet tomato based sauce as in the following recipes:
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Lazy Chicken Teriyaki Meatballs
Easy gluten free chicken meatballs in a sweet and savory teriyaki sauce that cooks altogether in your slow cooker. No browning of meatballs needed!
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Servings: 6 meatballs
Calories: 260kcal
Equipment
- slow cooker. Casserole crockpot works really well with this recipe
- mixing bowl
- ice cream scoop
- optional (but helpful): meat thermometer
Ingredients
Chicken Meatballs
- 2 lbs ground chicken
- 1.5 cups Chex Cereal crumbs or panko crumbs
- 3 eggs
- ¼ cup soy sauce (or gluten free alternative) If you are using Braggs Liquid Aminos I suggest 3 tablespoon as it is saltier tasting
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon dried Thai basil
- ¼ teaspoon dried ground ginger
Teriyaki Sauce
- 2 cups cold water
- ¼ cup corn starch
- 1 cup honey
- 1 cup soy sauce or gluten free alternative
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
Instructions
Meatball Mixture
- add chicken, crumbs of choice, eggs, soy sauce (or gluten free alternative), Thai basil, ginger and garlic to a mixing bowl. **see not above recipe for details on making Chex crumbs
- use hand to gentle mix ingredients. Do not over work as the chicken will become too mushy.
- place chicken mixture in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Teriyaki Sauce
- add cold water and corn starch into slow cooker and whisk together
- put slow cooker on high and add honey, soy sauce (or alternative), garlic and toasted sesame oil
- allow mixture to warm while you make meatballs
To Make Chicken Meatballs
- after 30 minutes, remove mixture from refrigerator and turn slow cooker down to low
- use an ice cream or meatball scoop to assist with form 2" chicken meatballs
- add meatballs to sauce one at a time. When finished, spoon the sauce over the meatballs and cover
- Cook 3-4 hours on low, or until they reach an internal temperature of 165°
Nutrition
Calories: 260kcal
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