We love homemade chicken burgers in our house because there are so many amazing ingredients you can add to them. I am going to give you two of our favorite chicken burger recipes. The best part about these recipes is not only do the grown-ups love them, but so do the kids. My 3.5 year old and my 16 month old loved these last night.
The first recipe is for what I call Weeknight Burgers. I call them this because they take less than 10 minutes to whip up and cook quickly on the indoor grill.
1 lb. ground chicken (you could use ground turkey if you prefer)
1 can rinsed and drained black beans
1/2 onion finely chopped
1/4 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese
1/2-1 tbsp smoked paprika (depending on taste)
1 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
* if you don’t like smoked paprika you could use cumin or regular paprika instead. Both are delicious!
Add all the ingredients to the bowl and mix together with you hands. Once the ingredients are well mixed form patties out of them. I usually make about 5 big patties from this recipe. The patties will seem very wet. That is how you want them otherwise they will get too dried out when they cook. During the week, I usually just cook these on my indoor grill or panini maker. Cook until these are cooked through. About 10 minutes. Some of our favorite toppings are cheese, avocado, tomato, lettuce and BBQ sauce.
Weekend burgers take a bit more prep work which is why I save them for the weekend. Use the same ingredients that are listed above. The one addition I make to these is I add bacon. First, I cook about 4 slices of thick center cut bacon in a pan until crispy. Once crispy, remove the bacon from the pan, crumble and allow to cool. Then drain away all but about 1 tbsp. of bacon fat. Cook the chopped onion in the bacon grease until tender. Once tender, remove and set aside to cool. Once cool add the onion and crumbled bacon to the chicken and black bean mixture. Form into patties. I usually cook these on the outdoor grill. You will notice that the burgers are very wet so don’t place them right on the grill because they will fall through. Put a piece of foil on the grill and cook the burgers on that.
On the weekend I often make my own buns for the burgers if I have time because they are so delicious and worth the little bit of effort that goes into it. If you have a bread maker they are basically effortless. Here is the link for my favorite Honey Wheat Burger Buns. Enjoy!
The best part about these two variations of burgers is that you can change them in any way you like. The possibilities really are endless. I would love to hear about your favorite variations when you make them. Hope you enjoy!
Learning As I Go 