Buffalo Chicken Mini Muffins

Some of the most popular recipes on my blog are the series of bites or savory mini muffins like cheeseburger, pizza, and taco. Maybe it’s how easy they are to make and reheat, their macro friendliness,  or their level of diggity in the flavor department. Whatever the reason, these buffalo chicken bites should fit right in.

With 45 calories, 4 grams of protein, and 2 grams of carbs each, they fit into any day. You can reheat them at work for a snack, serve with veggies as a main course, or make a big batch for your next get together.

The possibilities are endless!

Buffalo Chicken Bites Ingredient Modifications

Like my other bites recipes, these buffalo chicken bites combine a primary protein—in this case ground chicken—with eggs and breadcrumbs to make crispy mini muffins.

Ground Chicken 

I typically use a lower fat ratio than the 92/8 ground chicken I used for these buffalo chicken bites, but that can be tough to find with ground chicken. If you’ve seen me use 97/3 ground chicken like in my Nashville Hot Chicken Burgers, it came from HEB.

You can use a leaner cut of ground turkey if you have trouble finding lean ground chicken and want to save some fat and calories.

Onion and Garlic

Unlike some of my other bites recipes, these buffalo chicken bites have fresh vegetables cooked into the meat. These do a great job at limiting the saltiness that can come with buffalo sauce and ranch seasoning. They also add a bit of volume, stretching the number of bites from the usual 24 to 32.

While the onion is optional, you may need to tweak the amount of seasoning used to avoid an overly salty finished product.

Bonus Tip: How to Fix a Salty Dish

You can balance out salty dishes in a few different ways. Dilution is one of the easiest methods, but you can’t really add much in volume to these chicken bites. Adding sweetness via a sweetener or acidity via citrus or in the Greek yogurt dip would be my recommended method for a recipe like this. 

Making Your Own Ranch Seasoning

Speaking of salt, if you wanted a less salty option for ranch dip, you could fashion your own ranch seasoning with dried parsley, chives, dill, and buttermilk powder. There’s a bit of garlic and onion powder in ranch seasoning but you may not need it with the addition of fresh onion and garlic.

If you want a full recipe, check out Low Carb Maven’s homemade ranch seasoning.

The Cheese, Eggs, and Breadcrumbs

This trio binds everything together and makes the buffalo chicken bites more crispy muffin than meatball. You can, however, make a few substitutions:

• Using egg whites in place of the eggs will reduce the fat and calorie content without a very noticeable difference.
• Any cheese will work, though mozzarella or monterey jack are both softer, not-so-salty cheeses that I’d recommend. Some of my other bites recipes use parmesan, which crisps more when baked but is quite salty.
• Using crushed pork rinds or chicharrones is probably the easiest breadcrumb substitute for lower carb, gluten free buffalo chicken bites.

How to Make the Buffalo Ranch Greek Yogurt Dip

You can dip your buffalo chicken bites in whatever you want but if you wanted a simple dip that uses two of the ingredients you’ll already have on hand, here ya go:

• 1/2 C Fat Free Greek Yogurt
• 2 Tbsp Light Mayo (optional) 
• 2 Tbsp Buffalo Sauce
• 1 tsp Ranch Dip Mix

The light mayo makes the dip creamier and adds a bit of flavor, but the dip works fine without it. You could also swap the mayo for a bit of blue cheese like I used in the spread for the sandwich in my Instant Pot buffalo chicken recipe.

Final Notes for Buffalo Chicken Bites 

These chicken bites are best when reheated in the oven or an air fryer for 3-5 minutes, though the microwave works just fine. If you’re wondering what to serve them with, here are a few ideas:

• Air Fried Green Beans or Brussels Sprouts
• Crispy Garlic Parmesan Carrot Fries
• Copycat Wingstop Fries

And that’s it. Enjoy!

4.78 from 45 votes

Servings: 32 mini muffins

Buffalo Chicken Muffins

By Mason Woodruff

45-calorie ground chicken poppers with low fat buffalo ranch Greek yogurt dip.

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 30 minutes mins

Total: 40 minutes mins

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Ingredients

Buffalo Ground Chicken

• ▢ 1 lb Ground Chicken, 92/8
• ▢ 1/2 medium, 125g Sweet Onion, diced
• ▢ 3-5 cloves Garlic, minced
• ▢ 1/2 C 120g Frank’s RedHot Buffalo Sauce
• ▢ 1 Tbsp 10g Ranch Dip Mix
• ▢ 1/2 tsp Black Pepper

Buffalo Chicken Bites Mixtures

• ▢ 4 large Eggs, or 1 cup of liquid egg whites
• ▢ 1/2 C 56g Shredded Mozzarella, or your choice of cheese
• ▢ 1/2 C 56g Breadcrumbs, or crushed pork rinds for low carb chicken bites

Instructions 

• Preheat oven to 400F and prepare two 24-muffin tins or silicone molds. (The recipe makes 32 mini muffin-size chicken bites. You can make any size you like, though.)
• Add the ground chicken, diced onion, and minced garlic to a pan over medium high heat. Fully cook the chicken before adding the ranch, pepper, and buffalo sauce.
• Continue cooking over medium high heat until the mixture thickens, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
• Whisk the eggs together before adding to the cooked chicken mixture along with the shredded cheese and breadcrumbs. Stir well.
• Spoon the mixture into 32 slots in the muffin tins/molds. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until the buffalo chicken bites are slightly brown around the edges and bottoms. (If the tops begin to brown too much before the bottoms are no longer soggy, cover with foil and continue cooking.)
• Briefly cool before removing from the molds to finish cooling. Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container.

Notes

• Each buffalo chicken bite has 1 Smart Point.
• 4 buffalo chicken bites have 180 calories, 17g of protein, 8g of carbs, 9g of fat, and 4 Smart Points. 
• With egg whites in place of eggs, 4 buffalo chicken bites have 160 calories, 17g of protein, 8g of carbs, 7g of fat, and 4 Smart Points.
• For the buffalo ranch dip (140 calories, 11g protein, 7g carbs, 7g fat for all of it)
• I have the silicone muffin molds and other kitchen tools and products I use on my Amazon list.

Nutrition

Serving: 1mini muffin, Calories: 45kcal, Carbohydrates: 1.9g, Protein: 4.2g, Fat: 2.2g

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