This spin on traditional sausage cheese balls uses ground chicken, a DIY biscuit mix, and freshly shredded cheddar cheese to create a much healthier finger food. Each one of these chicken sausage balls has 6 grams of protein, 5 grams of carbs, and 3 grams of fat. So now you can double or triple up on your holiday snacking favorite!
How to Make Sausage Cheese Balls with Ground Chicken
This version combines two popular recipes from my blog—the chicken breakfast sausage and dry ingredients from my Greek yogurt biscuits. It’s super easy to make. Just throw everything in a mixer, give it a whirl, and form balls to bake.
Sausage cheese balls are traditionally made with Bisquick or biscuit mix so if you wanted to go that route, omit the flour, baking powder, granulated sugar substitute, and half the salt.
You could probably use something like the Carbquick I use in my crispy chicken biscuits recipe or Kodiak Cakes like in my everything bagel pop tart copycat to keep carbs under control.
If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can mix by hand with a spatula. But you may need to eventually get your hands involved to fully incorporate all the dry ingredients.
I’ve included some notes on making perfectly even sausage balls in the notes of the recipe card below. Since it’s a large batch, I eyeballed it and ended up with 26. You can divide the total nutrition information by the number of balls you make for updated numbers.
Once you’ve formed your sausage balls, all that’s left to do is bake ’em up!
Additional Chicken Sausage Balls Recipe Notes
Like my air fryer meatballs, I used 97% lean ground chicken. Though you should be fine using fattier cuts of ground chicken like the 92/8 I used for my sriracha bbq ground chicken meatballs (another great appetizer option). And I would imagine something like ground turkey would work as well.
Okay, this is a simple recipe. I think you got this! If you have questions about these chicken sausage cheese balls, you can leave a comment below or join my Facebook group with 16,000+ other folks who’d be happy to help you out.
Chicken Sausage Cheese Balls
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, I used 97/3
- 6 oz 168g Freshly Shredded Cheddar
- 1 1/2 C 180g All Purpose Flour
- 2 Tbsp 24g Swerve Granular (or a granulated sugar substitute)
- 2 Tbsp 24g Swerve Brown (or a brown sugar substitute)
- 1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder
- 2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2-1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Sage
- 1/2 tsp Allspice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl or stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
- Add the ground chicken and cheese. Mix until little to no dry ingredients remain. Use a spatula or your hands to fully incorporate any remaining dry ingredients.
- Use your hands or a small scooper to form balls with the mixture and place them on a wire rack over a baking sheet.* (Yes, you can bake directly on the sheet.)
- Bake for 20-22 minutes or until the chicken sausage balls reach an internal temperature of 165F.**
Notes
Nutrition Information Notes
- 2 chicken sausage cheese balls have 3 Smart Points.
- If you're making different sized sausage balls, the entire recipe as-is has 1,800 calories, 164g protein, 138g carbs, 71g fat, and 45 Smart Points.
- Nutrition information does not include any carbs from the zero-calorie Swerve sweeteners.
I haven’t yet made any recipes — YET! But these look amazing and much more fun/interesting for a change of pace. Can’t wait to try.
I first made these for Christmas Eve and let me tell you I was so surprised at the flavor. My mom makes the best sausage balls(southern style of course) and these stepped up the plate. I didn’t change anything in the recipe. I did have a hard time forming them into balls, but that was my mistake because I didn’t know cheese was a dry ingredient! Now, its like duh it is! But these would be an awesome addition for a superbowl party for sure!
These are a great sub for the traditional ones that have so much fat. They are filling too! I cut back the sweetener a little but they are delish either way.
These are so good! They remind me of sausage balls I had in the south one time, but they have way less fat and carbs. They reheat great for leftovers as well!
I came across this recipe and figured this would also make a great dinner. Mason suggested using a stand mixer but I just used my hands. They had a slight doughy texture to them but they still tasted great!