In episode 092 we are making grilled chicken burgers for dinner. These are not your average grilled chicken burger! The ground chicken is packed with flavor and stays nice and juicy on the grill. We then make a yummy garlic aioli and a dill pickle slaw that gets piled on a brioche bun for serving.
Serve it up with some traditional BBQ side dishes for a great dinner!
This episode is full of tips and tricks when you are working with ground chicken!
Transcript
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Intro: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: Hello. Hello everybody. Welcome in. Happy Thursday. All right, I’ve got a great dinner recipe for you today. I feel like summer is basically here. I mean, if we’re listening to this real-time, my kids have, I don’t know, seven and a half days of school left. So we are right on the cusp of summer. In our house, summer means we are grilling dinner and we are getting outside, enjoying the warm weather. It’s wonderful. I fully look forward to it.
So sometimes we get sick of grilling just the same old hamburgers over and over again. So over time, I have created a few different recipes for different types of burgers. So pork burgers, which actually is really popular in my hometown in Iowa. Pork burgers, Turkey burgers, regular hamburgers, some different toppings, some different aiolis, bacon jam, and now, we have such an amazing recipe for Grilled Chicken Burgers that I cannot wait to share with you. This is not your traditional, dry, bland chicken burger. It is pumped up with flavor. Then, when you serve it, you’re going to make a dill pickle slaw that is so delicious. It just amps the flavor up of the whole entire thing. Then, the piece de resistance is a garlic aioli that you’re going to put together. It’s just three ingredients and you stir it together and slather it all over your chicken burgers. When I eat it, I’m actually dipping my burger into more of the garlic aioli. It’s that good.
Tips and Tricks: So tips and tricks. Today I want to talk about a few ingredients and methods. For these chicken burgers and the slaw. So let’s start with the chicken burgers. If you’ve been here a while, you know anytime we’re making a ground meat recipe, we are adding a panade to that ground meat to keep it really juicy when it bakes or cooks or grills. So in this case, we are going to add a mixture of bread and milk. The mixture of those two together is going to keep that grilled chicken, that ground grilled chicken, nice and juicy. The note about the bread here is that you want to just use white or wheat bread. You want to avoid anything that is overly seedy or it has lots of nuts or grains in it. You don’t want that in your grilled chicken burger, so just white or wheat. Now, if you choose something like a French or ciabatta or Italian loaf, you can absolutely use that. If it has a really thick crust, you’ll want to remove that first and just use the soft insides.
A couple more ingredients that help keep these ground chicken burgers nice and juicy. We’re adding a little bit of mayo into the mixture, so that’s like adding a little bit of fat into your burger to keep it super juicy. We’re also adding a little bit of tomato paste, which again is going to add some juiciness, but it’s also going to add flavor throughout your entire burger.
Let’s talk a little bit about the ground chicken. When you go to the store to buy ground chicken, there may be a few different options. You may see something that says extra lean ground chicken, or all-breast meat ground chicken, or it may even say 98% lean ground chicken. You actually want to avoid those options. Those are going to be too lean, and you’re going to end up with something that eats like the bottom of your shoe. It’ll be so dry. It’s the same thing with ground Turkey, when you’re looking for ground Turkey for Turkey burgers, you want to avoid that 99% lean ground Turkey because it’s just too dry.
When you’re making burgers, you need a little bit of fat. Number one to stay juicy, and number two for flavor. So you just want to buy something that is a ground chicken. Generally, ground chicken that has some dark meat in it, some fat in it, is going to be more like a 92 or 93% lean ground chicken. Then you’re going to add a bunch of yummy spices and flavorings to that ground chicken. So you’re going to make it super delicious.
So let’s talk about the dill pickle slaw. There are a few ingredients here that I just want to mention really quickly. Number one is the actual coleslaw mix. So when you go to the store, you’re going to see all the different coleslaw mixes, you know, that’s just like the shredded carrots and cabbage in a bag. Look for the angel hair coleslaw. It’s going to be a lot thinner and is the perfect thickness and crunch and texture for your chicken burger. The other thing is you’re going to have some red onion in that dough pickle slaw. If you find that you’re really sensitive to onion flavor or that sometimes you feel like onion flavor takes over an entire dish when you use it raw, what you can do is slice off a chunk of the red onion. Rinse it under a little bit of cold water for like a minute, and then thinly slice it. That will rinse away the enzyme that makes red onion stick with you for a really long time or makes red onion take over your entire dish.
Now it’s a dill pickle slaw. So obviously we’re using dill pickles. What I recommend here is that you use a refrigerated dill pickle. So one that you buy at the grocery store, out of the refrigerator. There are tons of pickles that are shelf stable, they’re great. But for this recipe, you want maximum flavor and maximum crunch, and you’re going to get that out of a refrigerated pickle. Of course, we love Claussen dill pickles but I’ve also purchased the Aldi refrigerated dill pickles, and they’re great too. You’ll also need pickle juice for this recipe, so don’t drain out the pickle juice before you need it. You’re also going to put jalapeno in this dill pickle slaw. The heat of the jalapeno is actually held in the seeds and then the white ribs on the inside of the jalapeno. So if you don’t want any spice, just use the outside green edges of the jalapeno. If you like it spicy, use the entire jalapeno. If you’re like, I don’t even want to think about spice, maybe try using a poblano pepper instead of a jalapeno pepper.
The last tip that I want to talk about when you’re making these grilled chicken burgers is when you make that ground chicken mixture, that patty mixture, it’s going to be incredibly sticky. So when we go through the recipe, I’m going to talk about a few different tips and ways that you can keep the chicken burger number one, from sticking to your fingers in your hands. Number two, from sticking to the grill.
Chicken Burgers Recipe: So let’s go ahead and get into making the full recipe for your grilled chicken burgers with dill, pickle slaw, and garlic aioli. You’re going to start by prepping your grill with either gas or charcoal. Whatever you use will work here, but you want something that you can cook at a high heat with direct heat. Then you’re going to prep a rimmed baking sheet. This is going to be for carrying your burgers out to the grill. So prep it by putting large squares of waxed paper on the baking sheet, probably four or five, depending on how many burgers you’re going to make, and you’re going to generously coat those with a non-stick cooking spray. This is number one, going to help the chicken burgers, the raw chicken burgers from sticking to your pan. Number two, it makes a great little carrier to transfer the grilled chicken burgers to the grill without having them stick to your fingers or to a spatula.
All right, so now we’re going to make the grilled chicken burger patties. So in a medium size bowl, you’re going to combine one tablespoon of flat leaf parsley that is minced, one tablespoon of tomato paste, two minced garlic cloves, two tablespoons of milk, two tablespoons of mayonnaise, a three-quarters teaspoon of kosher salt, one teaspoon of black pepper. One teaspoon of onion powder. You’re just going to stir that all together, so it makes a nice little mixture. This is going to be the base for your panade. Next, you’re going to add in bread cubes. So like I said, you need one slice of white or wheat bread and just tear it or chop it into little cubes. Then you’re going to stir that into the mixture of mayonnaise and milk and tomato paste. Sometimes if the bread doesn’t absorb all of that liquid right away, I like to let it sit for just a few minutes so that the bread will start to soften. Once that’s nice and soft and all mixed together, you want to add half a cup of grated asiago cheese and one pound of ground chicken. Now, if Asiago cheese is not your jam, you can absolutely sub in another hard cheese. So maybe a Grana Padano, Romano, Parmesan, Gruyere, or something like that will work in place of the Asiago cheese.
Now, once you’ve got everything mixed together, you’re going to form your four to five equal-sized patties. Again, this is a really sticky mixture. So what I like to do is wet my hands just a little bit and then form the chicken burgers. Pop them on top of those little squares of wax paper that you prepped ahead of time and then give them a really nice, generous spray on the top with some of that non-stick spray. That’s going to help prevent them from sticking to the grill.
Now it’s time to take them out to the grill. Okay, so you’re going to grill your burgers over direct heat for probably about four to five minutes per side. Here’s the thing with ground chicken; you have to cook it to well done, to be safe to eat because it is chicken. It’s poultry. Well done means 165 degrees Fahrenheit internal temperature. So you can take that temperature with an instant-read thermometer is what we like best. So if you made really thick burgers, they may take longer than four to five minutes. If you made really thin burgers, it may only take three minutes per side. Just be conscious of cooking to a temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, not necessarily time.
Now take those burgers back inside. I like to let them just rest for a little bit. We’re going to make that dill pickle slaw and the garlic aioli. So for the garlic aioli, you can actually make that ahead of time if you’d like. It’s so simple. In a small bowl, you just stir together half a cup of mayonnaise, two minced garlic cloves, and one and a half teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice. That’s it, then it’s ready to go. As I said, you can make it ahead of time and pop it in the fridge for probably up to five days, maybe even a week. So make that ahead of time if you’d like.
For the dill pickle slaw in a large bowl, you’re just going to stir this together. Are you ready? Two cups of angel hair coleslaw. A third a cup of thinly sliced red onions. A half a cup of chopped dill pickles, and I like to chop them into maybe a quarter-inch size, so they’re a little bit bigger. One tablespoon of chopped jalapeno, two tablespoons of pickle juice, one tablespoon of olive oil, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. You just mix that all together and that’s it. You pile it high on top of your burgers and it’s so delicious.
What I will say about the slaw is you really can’t make that super duper in advance because as it sits with all those salty ingredients, the coleslaw and the onions and the jalapeno will start to release juices and all that salt will also start to break down the coleslaw. I would say make that at most an hour before you serve the burgers.
So when we serve these, I like to do a brioche bun. You can toast it on the grill or not toast it, totally up to you. Take the bun, slather on a ton of that garlic aioli, pop on your chicken burger, and then top it with a pile of the dill pickle slaw. You are absolutely going to love these. You’re going to go crazy for these. They’re so good.
So just like anytime you’re grilling, when we’re serving these, we like to do a starch and a veggie, so keeping it in the grilling family. For starches, you could think of potato salad, a cheesy potato casserole, twice-baked potato casserole, or pasta salad, or you can keep it really simple with potato chips, fries, or tater tots are always a good idea as well.
Then as far as vegetables, maybe we’ll do corn on the cob, roasted asparagus, roasted broccoli, or carrots, whatever. You know, depending on what time of year it is, we’ll decide what veggie we’re going to eat. So of course I will link all of those recipes for you right in the show notes so you can find everything you need to make this recipe when it’s time for dinner.
If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our new episodes right in your podcast feed.
Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.
Double Dip: All right, now it’s time for your double dip. You guys, thank you so much for sticking around, and looking forward to our episode for next week. So next week we’re going to follow in this same grilling vein and we are going to make a Grilled Chicken Caesar salad for dinner. We love having Grilled Chicken Caesar salads for dinner in the summer. It just is a nice light dinner that is still super delicious and everybody loves. The thing with this Grilled Chicken Caesar salad is that we’re making our own Caesar salad dressing and we are not adding anchovies to it. So if you’re opposed to anchovies, if you don’t love that kind of fishy flavor that Caesar salads sometimes have, or if you find that anchovies are kind of hard to find, this is going to be a great recipe for you.
To make this next week. Here are the ingredients that you’re going to need. Obviously, you’re going to need some chicken breasts and I always love to do an air-chilled chicken. I find it has better flavor and better texture. You need a little bit of kosher salt, black pepper, and some buttermilk because we’re going to marinate the chicken before we grill it. Then obviously romaine lettuce for the salad, Parmesan cheese, and some croutons. Then for the dressing, you’ll need garlic, kosher salt, Parmesan cheese, one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, two tablespoons of mayonnaise, and one teaspoon of Dijon mustard. One teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, half a teaspoon of hot sauce like Tabasco or Frank’s red hot, black pepper, and a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil. That’s it. So if you want to look at this recipe, there will be a link in the show notes for you so that you can take a look at it before you make it for dinner.
As always, if you ever have any questions about any of the recipes or anything we’re doing here on Let’s Make Dinner or on the Mom’s Dinner website, you can always email me. My email address is Susie, that’s s u s i e@momsdinner.net.
All right, until next week, I hope you guys have a wonderful week ahead. See ya.
Recipes Mentioned
- https://momsdinner.net/ground-chicken-burgers-recipe/
- https://momsdinner.net/grilled-burger-recipe/
- https://momsdinner.net/potato-salad-with-egg/
- https://momsdinner.net/easy-pasta-salad/
- https://momsdinner.net/oven-roasted-asparagus/
Next Week
I hope you will join me next week on Thursday when we are making A Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, make with an Anchovy Free Caesar Dressing.
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