These air fryer meatballs pair lean ground chicken with Panko breadcrumbs, spices, and sweet chili sauce to make a low calorie protein option or high protein snack. They’re easy to make and can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.
And you can get creative with meatball seasonings to make air fried meatballs with everything from beef and pork to chicken and turkey. Don’t worry, I’ve included a few recipe ideas to get you started!
How to Make Air Fryer Meatballs
I’ve included a visual recipe walkthrough below with a few tips, tricks, and ingredient substitution notes. If you’re feeling confident, feel free to skip down to the recipe card at the bottom of the post.
Mix Panko breadcrumbs, shredded parmesan, garlic powder, ground ginger, chili powder, and salt together before adding ground chicken, sweet chili sauce, and an egg.
These meatballs closely resemble my BBQ chicken meatballs. Aside from adding a few spices and swapping sweet chili for BBQ sauce, the only other difference you might notice is the protein source. Both recipes call for ground chicken, but this version calls for 97/3 ground chicken instead of 92/8. If possible, try to stick with the leaner ground chicken or ground turkey so you won’t have much rendered fat cook off during air frying.
For the sweet chili sauce, I used Trader Joe’s sweet chili sauce, which has a macro friendly 25 calories per tablespoon. Feel free to use other sweet chili sauces, as they should all get the job done for these chicken meatballs. In case you want to make your own, here’s a great sweet chili sauce recipe.
And if you don’t have Panko breadcrumbs in your pantry, I’ve successfully tested these meatballs with traditional breadcrumbs.
Line an air fryer basket with parchment paper and place 12 50-gram meatballs inside.
I used a 6.5-quart Ninja Foodi to make these air fryer meatballs. If you’re using a smaller air fryer, you may have trouble fitting all the meatballs in one batch. And if you’re using a larger air fryer, your meatballs may cook a bit faster with the extra surface area.
I’ve tested these meatballs without lining the air fryer basket with parchment paper, and they tend to stick a little bit. Since you’ll want to flip your meatballs for even browning, the parchment paper makes life much easier.
Air fry the meatballs for 15 minutes at 400ºF, flipping halfway through.
The air fryer does a fantastic job of browning the meatballs, so you’ll want to make sure you flip them to avoid burning. If you check on your meatballs halfway and they’re not quite brown, you can go a few minutes longer before flipping and reduce the cook time on the second side. It’s better to have browning on one side than none!
You want your meatballs fully cooked (an internal temperature of 165ºF) before glazing with the additional sweet chili sauce in the next step.
Brush additional sweet chili sauce on top and air fry an additional 2 minutes at 400ºF.
And that’s a wrap. You’re ready to roll. Top your air fried chicken meatballs with toasted sesame seeds and scallions to serve over rice or on their own with toothpicks for an easy, healthy game day snack.
They would also be a great paired with the cucumber crunch from my sweet chili ground turkey, my air fryer fried cauliflower rice, or my honey soy glazed air fryer brussels sprouts.
Other Meatball Seasoning Ideas
Now that you know how to make air fryer meatballs, you can take just about any baked meatball recipe and make it work as an air fried meatballs recipe. Here’s a handful of ideas from our recipe catalog and friends of the blog:
- Ground Turkey Teriyaki Meatballs
- Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- Classic Beef Baked Meatballs
- Low Carb Paleo Turkey Meatballs
- Swap the sweet chili for the sauce in my Firecracker Ground Chicken
However you end up making air fryer chicken meatballs, I’d love to hear about it. Come back and let me know in a comment or what you thought about the sweet chili version in a recipe review. I hope you enjoy!
Air Fryer Sweet Chili Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 lb Lean Ground Chicken or Turkey*
- 1/4 C 30g Panko Breadcrumbs
- 1 oz Shredded Parmesan Cheese
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Chili Powder
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1 large Egg
- 2 Tbsp 30g Sweet Chili Sauce
For Glazing
- 1/4 C 60g Sweet Chili Sauce
Instructions
- Mix the breadcrumbs, parmesan, salt, and spices together in a large bowl before adding the ground chicken, egg, and sweet chili sauce (30g). Work everything together to form a large ball.
- Line an air fryer basket with parchment paper before forming 12 meatballs (50 grams each) and placing in the basket.
- Air fry for 8 minutes at 400ºF, flip, and air fry an additional 6-8 minutes at 400ºF until the meatballs are cooked through (165ºF internal temp).
- Brush the remaining sweet chili sauce (60g) on top of the meatballs and air fry an additional 2 minutes at 400ºF.
- Garnish with sesame seeds and green onion. Serve with rice and lime wedges.
Made these tonight and the whole family loved them. I served them with rice and shaved brussel sprouts. I also used ground turkey.
Any tips on making these in the oven?
I added some notes to the recipe card from my baked bbq meatballs. 18-20 at 400ºF before glazing and baking an additional 3-5 minutes. Hope that helps!
I made them with ground turkey and did a homemade chili sauce recipe. Super easy and delicious dinner!
Good to know they work well with turkey and a DIY chili sauce. Thanks for sharing!
These are absolutely Amazing!!! Quick and easy to make. They also taste great reheated so they are great for meal prepping!! I will be eating this often.
Thanks for trying them, Nicole!
These are definitely a new favorite – amazing and so easy and quick to make! I used G.Hughes sugar free sweet chili sauce too and they turned out great
We loved these meat balls! I was worried they might be kind of spicy bc I can’t handle that but they were really good! Took me longer to prepare than the estimate but I also burn eggs so there’s that. Our whole fam loved this one! Literally 90% of our suppers are Masons recipes!
I reached out to Mason prior to cooking these since I must be the last person in existence that doesn’t own an air fryer and he provided me with oven cooking alternative instructions for these meatballs.
Tldr; For anyone thinking of doing the same, instead of air frying, preheat the oven to 400F and bake for 18-20 mins or 165* internal temperature. Take out, hit the meatballs with the Chili Sauce, and back in for another 2-3 minutes.
As for the recipe itself, the spices give the otherwise (IMO) bland taste of ground chicken or turkey, new life. Not sure if it’s the ginger or something else, but I could eat these meatballs even without the chili sauce.
Tip: Serve over Jasmine rice with a side of sautéed broccoli for a nice, asian inspired Mason Meal kinda healthy meal
Sal
At first I was worried about cooking meatballs in my air fryer but holy cow were these AMAZING. I loved the glaze from the sweet chili sauce.
Three words…. yum, yum, yum!
Love this for parties instead of the traditional beef ones I grew up with!