Traeger Smoked Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

Perfect for meal prep or healthy game day snacking, each one of these smoked chicken meatballs has 10 grams of protein with just 65 calories, 2 grams of carbs, and 2 grams of fat. They’re super easy to make, calling for 6 ingredients and about 15 minutes of prep time. If you’re looking for a healthy meatballs recipe to make on your Traeger grill or pellet smoker, the search is over!

Ingredients for Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

These smoked chicken meatballs are super easy to make. Here’s everything you’ll need:

• ground chicken
• breadcrumbs
• gorgonzola or blue cheese crumbles
• eggs
• ranch seasoning
• buffalo sauce

Ingredient Substitutions

Here’s a handful of ideas:

• ground turkey instead of ground chicken
• blue cheese or shredded parmesan instead of gorgonzola
• crushed pork rinds or tortilla chips instead of breadcrumbs for low carb or gluten free meatballs
• garlic powder, onion powder, and dried dill instead of ranch seasoning (or homemade ranch seasoning)

You can also swap the buffalo sauce for other sauces. Check out my baked BBQ chicken meatballs, sweet chili air fryer meatballs, or pan fried firecracker chicken meatballs for more flavor ideas (and alternative cook methods).

Forming and Smoking Meatballs

Two things will make life easier when it comes to making these buffalo chicken meatballs—a food scale and food-safe gloves. A food scale ensures your meatballs are the same size for even cooking, and the gloves just keep your hands clean while doing it.

As for the Traeger and smoking the meatballs, you’ll want to add a cast iron grill pan, mesh grill plate, or wire rack. The 50-gram meatballs are just a bit too small for the standard grates, and the extra surface area provides some nice browning. Just make sure you put your choice of grill pan in the smoker while it preheats. It needs to be hot when the meatballs go on to prevent sticking.

I used hickory, which adds a lot of smoke in a hurry. Any would should work fine for these smoked chicken meatballs, though.

In the last 20 minutes or so on the smoker, you’ll want to brush your meatballs with buffalo sauce. As it smokes, the sauce will form a sticky buffalo crust that doesn’t come off when handled.

Be sure to check multiple meatballs in different areas of the smoker for doneness (165ºF) with your food thermometer.

Serving Your Smoked Chicken Meatballs

I plated my meatballs with some additional gorgonzola, green onion, and a drizzle of buffalo sauce. Alongside the meatballs was a plate of carrot and celery sticks with a creamy ranch dip.

If you’re putting together more of a full meal, our Traeger twice smoked potatoes would be a good pairing. As would some air fryer smashed potatoes, lemon butter green beans, cauliflower mashed potatoes, or roasted carrots and potatoes.

You could also go sandwich style like Lillie’s buffalo turkey meatball subs.

Reheating Leftover Smoked Meatballs

When it comes to reheating, I like using the air fryer or oven. It reheats more evenly and tends to keep the chicken moist and tender, unlike the microwave. I’ve found a lower temperature like 300ºF for 6-8 minutes in the air fryer is perfect. You may want to increase the temperature to around 350ºF for the oven.

If you have some extra time, you can toss some quartered baby gold potatoes in olive oil and ranch seasoning and air fry for about 20 minutes at 400ºF. Then add the meatballs and air fry a few extra minutes. Check out our air fryer potato wedges for a more in depth look at making the potatoes, if you need some extra guidance.

More Traeger Recipes

• Traeger Smoked Mexican Chicken Breast
• Bacon Wrapped Chorizo Stuffed Jalapeño Poppers
• Tex-Mex Style Smoked Pork Tenderloin
• BBQ Smoked Chicken Thighs
• Traeger Smoked Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy smoking! If you have any questions about these buffalo smoked chicken meatballs, leave it in the comments at the bottom of this post. And if you try this recipe and love it, I always appreciate recipe reviews.