Chicken burgers: Recipe for the weekend

{chicken burger: it's what's for dinner}

One of my and Michael’s favorite, weekend meals is about as all-American as you can get: hamburger and fries. Usually, though, we swap out homemade sweet potato fries and, of lately, we’ve found a new favorite alternative burger: chicken burgers.

My discovery ended up being quite accidental: I happened to find the ground chicken on sale at the grocery and, still being quite new to my cooking adventures, wasn’t sure what I’d use it for. So Michael suggested the age-old ground-meat standby: burgers.

Then, when it came time to whip the recipe together, I got distracted by the police arrests going on next door. (Don’t worry: There was no violence and I have to hand it to the police though they were loud and insistent, they were quite patient, hanging outside and finally calling in about 5 other cops and a K-9 unit until the guys came out from inside.) Still that held our attentions moreso than following the recipe instructions word for word.

In spite of the circumstances though, these burgers could not have turned out better in either of our opinions. They are the juiciest burgers I’ve had and the onions mixed in give them a satisfying crunch.

{my handsome husband who loves getting his picture taken}

{me, chowing down}

Here’s the recipe for making two burgers, which I adapted from The Food Network:

Ground Chicken Burgers
Ground white meat chicken: approx. 1/2 lb., enough for two generous-sized patties

*1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (see note below about easily making your own at home)
1 tablespoon low-fat milk
1 tablespoon minced onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
Cracked black pepper
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

All I did was put all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl, and used my hands to mix it together. Then I formed patties, plopped them on a heated skillet sprayed with non-stick cooking oil. Flipped them a couple times until they were browned all the way through, and perfectly juicy hamburgers with a bit of crunch!

* An easy way to make your own bread crumbs using a food processor: Take a piece of fresh or slightly stale bread and tear into chunks. Pulse it in a mini chopper or food processor. If you make a giant batch, you can freeze the extras so that next time you can skip this step.