SCD Pizza Meatball Skewers

My new favorite savory gut-healthy party snack: these meatballs! They have all of the best pizza-inspired spices & herbs to balance out the fresh spinach, shaved warm, and tomato.

A High-Protein, SCD Appetizer

The first time I made these meatballs was for the superbowl this year. Naturally, we still wanted all of the same finger-foods & party snacks we made for larger gatherings in previous years. So I was put on meatball duty… and these fun little skewers were the result!

I had to make them SCD-friendly of course. I follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) guidelines very closely to help manage my ulcerative colitis symptoms.

As the name of this “diet” implies, it removes specific carbohydrates that are known to be difficult to digest or inflammatory in people with autoimmune diseases. Luckily, the only major ingredients I had to swap out from my Mom’s traditional meatball recipe was the breadcrumbs!

• Link: “SCD Legal/Illegal Foods”
• Link: “One year with UC: My Story”

Making Meatballs with Venison

Honestly, any ground meat works for this recipe. Since venison has a very low fat content, it will behave similarly to lean ground beef, chicken, or turkey. But here’s why I prefer to use venison when I can:

• Venison isn’t factory farmed: its as “paleo” as you can get these days. Hunted deer are always local, wild, and ate its natural diet. In most large, factory farm type of operations, animals being raised for meat are eating grains, canola seed byproduct, and leftover candy. While these types of foods stimulate faster growth, they usually cause severe inflammation and other sicknesses in the animal.
• It tastes like high quality beef! I think there’s a stigma around venison that it tastes “gamey” and tough. But if you treat it right, almost every cut of venison is incredible. However, if you don’t want to take chances, I feel like ground venison is pretty fool-proof.
• Venison is a complete, high-quality protein, it has less saturated fat than beef, and it’s high in iron & an array of B-vitamins.

Air Fried Meatballs

While an oven works well to bake meatballs, I’m convinced that air frying takes it up a notch!

I LOVE cooking meat proteins in the air fryer.

1. Its fast.
2. I feel like it traps moisture in better than grilling or baking does. Aka: more tender, flavorful meatballs!
3. The outside has a really good “crust” while the inside remains juicy.

Air Frying is also my preferred method of cooking salmon, tuna, hamburgers, and chicken for most of the same reasons!

How to Make SCD Pizza Meatballs

Step 1: Combine all of the ingredients in a mixing bowl. Using your hands or a spoon, mix until well-combined.

Step 2: Scoop out the mixture into evenly sized balls and roll between the palms of your hands to shape.

Step 3: Place in a lightly greased air fryer basket and bake! Alternatively, baking them in the oven works well too.

Step 4: Assemble the skewers by layering a spinach leaf, shaved parmesan cheese, and 1/2 of a fresh grape tomato on top of each meatball. I recommend serving them warm with no-sugar-added pizza sauce for dipping.

My Other Favorite Appetizer Recipes:

• SCD Mediterranean Tuna Cakes
• Air Fried Cinnamon Sugar Bites
• SCD Air Fried Mozzarella Sticks

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