AIP chicken meatballs in coconut-mushroom cream sauce - air fryer or skillet, egg-free

Comfort food is one of the harder things to miss on this protocol, the creamy sauces and the tender, held-together shapes that usually depend on things you cannot eat right now. These meatballs do not use egg, and they still hold. Onion, herbs, and the meat itself are enough. If you have been avoiding recipes like this because you assumed you needed a substitute you do not have, this one proves you do not.

The sauce is built on bone broth, and its glycine is one thing a body draws on while it works to calm a gut lining that autoimmunity has put under pressure. The chicken itself is a clean, simple source of protein, the material a body actually rebuilds tissue from. A meal like this does its work slowly, over weeks of being remade, not in one dinner.

Source chicken raised with a bit more room than a factory pen, when you can find it, and let the lemon and rosemary make this feel like the real meal it is. Spoon the pale sauce over the meatballs, scatter what herbs you have left, and bring it to the table before the sauce has any chance to cool.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 lb ground chicken (or turkey)
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1.5 tsp sea salt
• 2.5 tbsp olive oil, divided

Mushroom cream sauce

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 cup mushrooms (cremini, button, or baby bella), minced
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk (additive-free)
• 1.5 cups bone broth or chicken stock
• sea salt, to taste
• 1 tbsp tapioca starch
• 1 tbsp water

Method

In a bowl, combine the ground chicken, lemon zest, finely chopped onion, crushed garlic, rosemary, and sea salt. Mix gently with your hands just until it comes together; overworking makes meatballs tough. The mixture should hold a ball when you roll it. If it is too loose to shape, work in 1 tbsp of arrowroot or tapioca starch as a Core binder. Roll into meatballs about 1.5 inches across.

Warm 1.5 tbsp of the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Brown the meatballs on all sides, turning gently, until cooked through, around 10 to 12 minutes. Lift them out and set aside.

For the sauce, add the remaining olive oil to the same pan. Add the crushed garlic and the minced mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms soften and release their liquid, about 5 minutes. Stir in the lemon zest and rosemary. Pour in the coconut milk and bone broth, season with sea salt, and bring to a gentle simmer.

Stir the 1 tbsp tapioca starch into the 1 tbsp water to make a smooth slurry, then stir it into the simmering sauce. It will thicken in a minute or two. Return the meatballs to the pan and spoon the sauce over them, simmering another few minutes to bring everything together.

Air fryer variation

Cook the meatballs in the air fryer while you make the sauce on the stovetop. Arrange them in a single layer in the basket, not touching, and air-fry at about 380 F for 10 to 12 minutes, shaking the basket halfway through, until cooked through. Then drop them into the finished sauce to coat and warm.

Core note on the egg-free binder

Many chicken-meatball recipes use an egg to bind, and eggs are fully excluded on AIP Core during elimination. These do not call for one; the onion, herbs, and protein hold them together. If your particular batch is too soft to shape, the Core fix is 1 tbsp of arrowroot or tapioca starch worked into the mix, not an egg. The tapioca slurry in the sauce is also Core compliant.

*Adapted from heal-me-delicious*