Baked Buffalo Chicken Cheese Balls

By aggiebutch

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups shredded chicken (rotisserie chicken works great)
• 1/2 cup hot sauce (Franks)
• 1 3/4 cup grated cheddar (or sub your favorite cheese)
• 1/4 cup chopped scallions
• 1 cup flour
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups panko crumbs
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Details

Servings 1
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 32mins
Adapted from thehungryhedgehog.com

Preparation

Step 1

I knew I had to try it.  I wanted to try baking them instead of frying though.  I think they turned out pretty amazing.

Baked food isn’t quite as crispy as fried, but it also isn’t as oily, and it’s kind of less of an ordeal in my opinion.  To fry things, you have to use a ton of oil, even if you reuse it, it’s still a lot. And, it takes a long time, because you can only fry a few things at a time to avoid “crowding the pan”.

I did use a little oil to help the panko brown up, but way less than with frying. Also, I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil, which you couldn’t do if you were frying.  The nice thing about panko is that it’s still pretty crispy even without frying.

One thing you need to be sure to do when baking this cheesy goodness is to cover the chicken balls well with the flour, egg and panko.  This helps seal the cheese in and helps prevent it from oozing out onto the pan when it melts in the oven.

Serves

3 eggs, beaten

Directions

Preheat oven to 450°f. Line baking sheet with foil and lightly grease with a little bit of the olive oil.

Mix chicken, cheese, scallions and hot sauce. Form into 1.5" balls (about the size of golf balls). Put the flour, eggs, and panko in separate dishes. Dip and coat each ball in flour, then egg, then panko. Set them on the baking sheet.

©Jessica Dove All Rights Reserved.