French Onion Chicken Meatballs

These skillet French onion chicken meatballs are a twist on French onion soup and make for a cozy cold-weather dinner. Caramelized onions are simmered in a rich sauce with chicken meatballs seasoned with herbes de Provence. Serve the meatballs with pasta, rice, or bread on the side or pile them into rolls for decadent meatballs subs.

French Onion Chicken Meatballs

In the last almost 10 years of writing this blog I’ve embarked on a few kitchen cooking marathons like beef bourguignon, Espagnole sauce, and penne al Pomodoro plus a few other dishes that are best described as labor intensive. They’re fewer and far between these days because I get the whole “nobody ain’t got time for that” mindset when we are just trying to deal with life and often only have a small window to get dinner on the table. One-pot, 30-minute, 5-ingredient dinners just fit a little easier into hectic days and most days that’s where my head is at, too.

Except sometimes my head’s not in that place and I get a hankering to stand over the stove nursing and doctoring a pan of something takes longer than a hot minute to execute. And these French onion chicken meatballs, while not as time-consuming as the recipes I mentioned at the start, are the latest addition to my repertoire of savory weekend-friendly slow-cooked dishes. It starts with onions cooked until they are sweet and jammy before they simmer in a simple sauce along with chicken meatballs flavored with Herbes de Provence. They’re a twist on the classic French onion soup complete with melted Gruyere cheese but served up skillet-style. They’re a new favorite cold-weather comfort-food dinner.

How to Caramelize Onions

• It starts with white onions that you will slice. So many, in fact, you’ll wonder if it’s too many, but it’s not. About a pound of onions will yield about a 1/2 cup of caramelized onions so for this recipe, I started with about two pounds.
• If you’ve ever read a recipe that says you can caramelize onions in 15 to 20 minutes you have, I’m sorry to say, been lied to. Depending on the amount, the size of the pan, and other conditions it just takes a while to develop that deep golden color. So, we’re probably not going to try and caramelize onions on a busy weeknight when everyone’s starved and there’s actually no time to cook anything. Like I mentioned, we’re caramelizing onions on the weekend when there’s nothing more to do than give them a stir every so often.
• I tested this recipe using a 10-inch skillet and it took an hour and 40 minutes to achieve what you see in the photo above. Perhaps a bigger pan would have shortened the cooking time, but I wanted to keep this to a one-pan cooking adventure and using a larger pan would have messed with the amount of sauce that I wanted to end up with. You may, should you choose to take on this caramelized onion challenge, get the same results in more or less time. Just know if you use a bigger pan, I can’t guarantee how the rest of the recipe will go.
• Others may take different steps, but I find the best caramelized onions start with some butter in a pan over medium heat. Once the butter melts add the onions and then stir them every so often. It will seem like not much is happening for quite a while because in order to caramelize they need to release a lot of their moisture.
• After about an hour, I like to turn the heat down to medium-lowish and keep a closer eye on them with a bit more stirring than before. I’ve read some recipes that recommend adding more liquid or butter to the pan as you go to prevent the onions from drying out, but I find if I monitor the heat and stir the onions they stay soft and moist without having to add anything else. Only at the end, right before you take them out of the pan, add a splash of white wine. This gives them a wonderful flavor and also deglazes the pan.
• So the moral of the caramelized onion story? Be patient because great things will happen if you take your time.

How to Make the Meatballs

• Most of the time for this recipe is spent with the onions during which you can prep the meatballs.
• All you need is some ground chicken, dried breadcrumbs, Herbes de Provence, one egg and some salt and pepper. Mix it all together, roll it into about 1-oz sized meatballs (you should get about 16) and set them aside until the onions are caramelized. After you remove the onions from the pan, increase the heat to medium, add some olive oil and cook the meatballs just until they’re browned all over. They’ll finish cooking in the sauce, which you’ll make next.

How to Make the Sauce

• So the pan now has been used to cook the onions and brown the meatballs which mean there are some browned bits that will go a long way to flavor the sauce. It starts with butter and flour that cook together just until the flour loses its raw flavor. I like to add about a quarter cup of the chicken stock at this point and, as it simmers, I use the whisk to scrape up all the flavor off the bottom of the pan. From there add the rest of the stock and bring it to a boil until it starts to thicken.
• Add the onions to the sauce and reduce the heat enough to maintain a strong simmer. The sauce will continue to thicken and, after about five minutes or so, you can add the meatballs back in. Cook all of it together for another five to ten minutes until the sauce is thick and glossy and the meatballs are cooked through.

Depending on what you like there’s a few ways to serve these French onion chicken meatballs. You can keep them in the skillet, top them with cheese, and pop the skillet under the broiler for a few minutes (like in the photo above) and serve them with some rice or pasta or just as they are with hunks of crusty bread on the side for dunking in the sauce. Or, like in the photo below, pile the meatballs into top-sliced rolls, top with cheese, and serve them up sandwich-style.

More Cold-Weather Dinner Ideas

• One-Pan Spaghetti Bolognese with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
• 17 Hearty Chili Recipes
• Shepherd’s Pie
• French Onion Hot Dogs

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