Buffalo turkey meatballs are a unique take on a game day classic. Made in less than 30 minutes with minimal effort, they are easy to make, eat, and serve. Perfect as a weeknight dinner, game day snack, or fun appetizer, they pair wonderfully with nearly any side dish. It’s a quick and healthy meal, you won’t want to miss!
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📋 About the Recipe
- Quick, easy, healthy, and made in less than 30 minutes!
- The use of ground turkey makes it a healthy dinner with lean protein.
- Homemade sauces help you remain in control of the fat, sodium, and spice levels.
- Tastes just like buffalo chicken without the messy fingers, excessive napkins, and sauce smeared across your face!
- Homemade creamy feta ranch helps to tame the spice, while adding a unique twist on the traditional dipping sauce. Celery and carrots also help to calm down the heat.
🛒 Ingredients
For the Turkey Meatballs
For the Buffalo Sauce
For the Creamy Feta Ranch
A few notes about the ingredients:
For the Turkey Meatballs
- Ground turkey: ground turkey gives the meatballs a great texture and poultry flavor. It stays perfectly moist with the help of the other ingredients and pairs great with the rich, spicy buffalo sauce.
- Breadcrumbs, egg, milk: these are the binding agents. They combine together to keep the ground turkey from falling apart and drying out. You can choose your favorite milk. I used almond milk for mine.
- Garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, parsley: each gives a unique flavor to the meatballs without overpowering the flavor in the sauce. Adjust the salt and pepper according to your family’s tastes.
- Worcestershire sauce: worcestershire sauce provides another flavor element to the meat. Though it might be a tad more expensive, Lea and Perrins is the only worcestershire sauce I recommend. Others tend to use corn syrups and other additives.
- Olive oil: a small amount of oil is used to pan fry the meatballs. If you prefer a different oil, you can use any flavorless cooking oil that can withstand high heat.
For the Buffalo Sauce
- Frank’s red hot sauce: Frank’s is most commonly used in buffalo sauce, but if you prefer a different hot sauce, you can try that instead.
- Unsalted butter: the butter gives the sauce a great flavor, tones down some of the spice from the Frank’s, and helps the sauce stick to the meatballs. If you’d like the sauce to be a tad healthier, you can use a little less butter.
- White vinegar, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce: all help to enhance the sauce. The vinegar gives it a slight tanginess, while the worcestershire and soy give it an umami, saltiness.
- Garlic powder, salt, and pepper: seasonings for additional flavor. Again, adjust the salt and pepper to your tastes.
📓 Instructions
For the Turkey Meatballs
Combine all of the meatball ingredients, besides the olive oil, in a medium bowl. Mix them all together.
Scoop out around 20 meatballs. (I used about 1 tbsp of the meat mixture for each meatball.) Set them aside.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, stockpot, or dutch oven over medium heat.
Once the oil is hot, add in the meatballs. Brown the meatballs for a few minutes or until they are perfectly golden brown and lift up easily from the bottom of the skillet.
Flip them and brown on the other side for another few minutes. Remove browned meatballs from the stove and place them on a clean plate.
For the Buffalo Sauce
Add all of the sauce ingredients, besides the butter, into the empty skillet. Stir them to combine.
Reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer for a minute. Carefully add in the butter and whisk to combine it with the rest of the sauce.
As the butter melts, add the meatballs back into the skillet. Coat them in the sauce.
Cook the meatballs until they’re fully cooked in the middle, about another minute or two.
If the sauce breaks, meaning the fat from the butter separates from the rest of the sauce, simply take the pot off the heat, remove the meatballs, and whisk the sauce to combine and thicken it again.
Serve buffalo turkey meatballs covered in homemade buffalo sauce with a side of celery and carrot sticks, as well as creamy feta ranch for dipping.
⁉️ Substitutions and Alterations
Instead of ground turkey: you can use ground chicken, which has a little less poultry flavor. However, I would NOT recommend ground beef in this recipe because the additional grease and meaty flavor will overpower the sauce.
For a blue cheese dressing: swap out the ¼ cup of feta for a ¼ cup of blue cheese crumbles instead.
If you don't have buttermilk, you can simply double the sour cream instead.
🔍 FAQs
Buffalo turkey meatballs go extremely well with so many different side dishes!
Basically anything you’d typically pair with traditional buffalo chicken, like ranch, blue cheese, celery, or carrots, are all great options to help tame down some of the heat.
You can also serve these meatballs alongside white or brown rice, quinoa, or other grains, on top of pasta or a garden salad, or served inside a pita, naan, or hoagie roll with the ranch dressing drizzled over top as a meatball sandwich.
The secret to keeping turkey from drying out or falling apart is to have the proper ratios of fats, breadcrumbs, eggs, and liquids or milk.
This recipe incorporates all 4 in some way or another, so that the balls are perfectly moist and juicy, with no crumbling.
If you make a substitution, try to substitute with something of similar nature or texture. For example, if you don’t have breadcrumbs, you can use crushed crackers instead.
If your meatballs turn out mushy, it is possible that your measurements are off. If the balls seem too wet, you can slowly add in a bit more breadcrumbs to the mixture before pan frying them.
Also of note, ground turkey is finer than ground beef and contains less fat, so it typically falls apart easier. For ground turkey or ground chicken meatballs and meatloaves, you may need additional binders, like eggs and breadcrumbs, to make up for the different consistency.
Eggs are a key element in keeping meatballs from falling apart, especially those made from turkey or chicken, instead of beef.
However, if you want to leave out the egg, you can try to substitute with buttermilk, yogurt, mozzarella cheese, or a slice of bread lightly soaked in milk.
💭 One More Tip
Create a buffalo turkey meatball sub by splitting a medium-sized hoagie roll slightly down the middle, leaving only one side attached so the fillings don’t leak out.
Lightly toast the roll, then slather it on both sides with the creamy feta ranch. Add in a few meatballs, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and onions.
Serve with a side of celery or carrot sticks and homemade chips.
🍴 Related Recipes
Share your cooking with me! If you make this recipe, I'd love to know! Tag @yourhomemadehealthy on Instagram or leave a comment with a rating and some feedback at the bottom of this page!
📖 Recipe
Buffalo Turkey Meatballs with Creamy Feta Ranch
Equipment
- skillet, stock pot, or dutch oven
Ingredients
For the Meatballs
- 1 lb ground turkey (can also use ground chicken)
- ½ cup breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp milk of choice
- 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp dried parsley
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil
For the Buffalo Sauce
- ¾ cup Frank's red hot sauce
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- a few dashes of cayenne optional, for additional heat
- ½ cup unsalted butter
For the Creamy Feta Ranch
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ¼ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup crumbled feta
- ½ tsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp mustard powder
- ½ tsp dried parsley
- ½ tsp dried dill
- cayenne optional
Instructions
For the Turkey Meatballs
- Combine all of the meatball ingredients, besides the olive oil, in a medium bowl. Mix them all together.
- Scoop out around 20 meatballs. (I used about 1 tbsp of the meat mixture for each meatball.) Set them aside.
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, stockpot, or dutch oven over medium heat.
- Once the oil is hot, add in the meatballs. Brown the meatballs for a few minutes or until they are perfectly golden brown and lift up easily from the bottom of the skillet.
- Flip them and brown on the other side for another few minutes. Remove browned meatballs from the stove and place them on a clean plate.
For the Buffalo Sauce
- Add all of the sauce ingredients, besides the butter, into the empty skillet. Stir them to combine.
- Reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer for a minute. Carefully add in the butter and whisk to combine it with the rest of the sauce.
- As the butter melts, add the meatballs back into the skillet. Coat them in the sauce.
- Cook the meatballs until they’re fully cooked in the middle, about another minute or two.
- If the sauce breaks, meaning the fat from the butter separates from the rest of the sauce, simply take the pot off the heat, remove the meatballs, and whisk the sauce to combine and thicken it again.
- Serve buffalo turkey meatballs covered in homemade buffalo sauce with a side of celery and carrot sticks, as well as creamy feta ranch for dipping.
For the Creamy Feta Ranch
- Mix together all of the ranch ingredients in a small bowl.
Notes
- Instead of ground turkey: you can use ground chicken, which has a little less poultry flavor. However, I would NOT recommend ground beef in this recipe because the additional grease and meaty flavor will overpower the sauce.
- Frank's is commonly used for buffalo sauce, but if you prefer a different hot sauce you can give it a try.
- For a blue cheese dressing: swap out the ¼ cup of feta for a ¼ cup of blue cheese crumbles instead.
- If you don't have buttermilk, you can double the sour cream instead.
- Turn the meatballs into a complete meal by serving them alongside white or brown rice, quinoa, or other grains, on top of pasta or salad, or wrapped in pita, naan, or a hoagie roll for a buffalo meatball sandwich.
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