Recipe Review: Chicken Tarter Burgers

When I was at the grocery store the other day, I picked up two packs of ground chicken breast. The store doesn't always offer ground chicken breast, so I usually get an extra pack when they are available. It's much healthier than the normal ground chicken, and I really like the way it tastes. Unfortunately, sometimes the meat can get dried out, so I usually try to include some type of moisture while cooking it.

I used one pack of the ground chicken breast to make my taco lasagna. So, I decided to use the second pack on an existing recipe that I could review. I found a recipe for chicken tarter burgers. The recipe got some good reviews, so I figured it was worth a shot. I did make a couple of substitutions. First, I halved the recipe since I only had one pound of ground chicken breast. In the tarter sauce, I substituted chopped hot banana rings for the dill pickle relish. I opted not to use red bell pepper. I also didn't use bread crumbs, instead opting for 1/4 cup of wheat germ. Having sugar gliders means that there is always a stash of wheat germ in the house so that I can make their food. I rarely have bread crumbs in the house, but I've used wheat germ in the past as a substitute. It works like a charm. Finally, I opted to use sandwich thins for the buns as they are low calorie and fairly tasty.

My review of the chicken tarter burger is that I really enjoyed it. I opted to pan fry the burgers rather than grill, and it didn't dry out. I attribute the moistness of the burger to the addition of the peppers and onions into the burger mixture. I will warn that the ground chicken mixture is quite sticky, so it might be hard to manage the patties, but perseverance will bring success.

As for the tarter sauce mixture, I really liked it. I love spicy food, so I'm happy I substituted the hot banana pepper rings for the pickle relish. I also used Frank's Red Hot Sauce for the generic hot sauce mentioned in the recipe. Finally, I made the entire batch of tarter sauce, which I calculated to be about 6 servings (it made 1/3 cup of sauce, and I calculated a serving at 1 tablespoon). I actually only needed 1/2 tablespoon for my burger which only netted me 6 calories. Not too shabby.

I would definitely make these burgers again. Next time, I may experiment with other veggies to go in the burger. Perhaps celery and carrots would make a good burger and give it a buffalo chicken flavor. If I make a homemade blue cheese dressing, I'm sure it would settle any wing craving.

As you can see from the picture, I served this with a side of potato salad. I just bought some premade potato salad from the deli section at the grocery store. It saved me time, and it was a great complement to the burger.