Though there is nothing wrong with conventional beef or lamb burgers, these burger are really simple and can be cooked in a frying pan or on a BBQ though frying pan is often the easiest option with the unpredictable English summer weather. This recipe is from a Waitrose Recipe Card that I’ve adapted very slightly but the entire thing is pure paleo.
The beauty of these burgers is that they don’t require any bread crumbs, almond flour or egg to make them stick together; this recipe is principally three ingredients – chicken breast, rosemary and onion. You can easily make the ‘mince’ in advance and keep it in the fridge or freezer to make whenever you feel like it.
Chicken Burgers
Preparation to Plate: 20 Minutes
Serves 2-3 people (makes 4-6 burgers)
Keep refrigerated (Raw mince can be frozen)
Consume within 1-2 days
Ingredients:
400g Chicken Breast, sliced into medium chunks
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp rosemary, finely chopped
Olive oil
Recipe:
Place the chicken into a food processor and blitz until finely minced (using a normal food processor blade, I found using a ‘mincer’ blade doesn’t work). Once minced add the chopped onions and rosemary and pulse a few times until blended.
Take a small handful of mixture (about 60-65g if you weigh it out to make six) and shape the mixture into six even sized ‘cakes’, as shown below. You can quite easily double or triple the recipe and make larger cakes to put in bags to freeze for later at this point; these cook in minutes so are a really good paleo meal which you can keep for a while and use after shift.
Cook the cakes on a medium heat with a small amount of olive oil for about 5-6 minutes on each side (or until done); this time with vary depending on how thick and big your cakes are, please adjust the time needed for the size of your cakes. If you want to keep some cooked for later on that day or the next morning for a ‘night shift breakfast’ then allow to cool before refrigerating, otherwise plate and serve.
Serving Suggestions:
Serve with a side salad, grilled vegetables and homemade mayonnaise (recipe to follow soon).
Serve with a slide of grilled sweet potato as a paleo ‘bun base’ with vegetables.
Alternative:
The original recipe says you can add pancetta to the mixture before forming it into cakes. Personally I found this made the mixture quite salty but still delicious, feel free to add this if you’d prefer but I personally didn’t for this recipe.