Chicken, Quinoa and Apple Burgers

Ingredients

• 300g chicken breast, £5.84/kg, £1.78
• 2 spring onion, or an ordinary onion, 5p
• An apple, a wonky one, 16p
• 50g quinoa, £3.92/500g, 39p
• 20g flour
• Tsp garlic paste, 75p/210g, 2p
• Tsp ginger paste, 75p/210g, 2p
• half tsp salt
• Tblsp veg oil, £1/litre, 2p
• Priced at Morrisons using mySupermarket 7Oct17
• Cost per burger (6) 40p. Total cost £2.43
• Nutrition per burger (6) 134 calories, 12g protein, 5g fat, 12g carbs
• Total nutrition. 806 calories, 74g protein, 27g fat, 70g carbs

Takes 30 min, makes 6 large burgers.

Instructions

1. Fine chop the spring onions or onion. Chop the chicken breast into pieces. Place the onion, chicken, salt, ginger and garlic into a food processor.

Peel and slice the apple and cook in a tablespoon of water until fluffy. Add to the food processor. Now process everything until it is coarse puree.

Cook the quinoa for about 20 minutes until soft. Drain well and add to the chicken mixture, do not process.

Now, using your hands, divide the mixture into 6 and shape into flat burger shapes. Fry in the oil gently, they are quite fragile, for about 4 minutes each side, you want a crispy finish.

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Verdict

These are delicious burgers that all the family will love.

The first time I made these, I used a bit too much quinoa, so I’ve reduced it here. They also didn’t stick together very well when cooked, so I added a little flour. You could use an egg if you prefer, as quinoa is gluten free, that would keep this recipe gluten free. I found that a flat, and thin, burger tasted nicer than a fatter one, so thinner than the picture of the ones I made.

We had ours with oven wedges that had been tossed in a little oil and some rogan josh curry paste, and some tomatoes from the garden, currently living, and ripening, in a bowl in the kitchen.

Variations

• The quinoa is high protein for a grain, but you could change it to rice, millet or cous cous.
• Beans would work well, and are higher protein than quinoa. Make them very soft and give them a bit of a squash with a fork first. Use drained and rinsed value baked beans for a quick, cheap version. And lentils of course would be good too.
• Cooked chicken from a roast could be substituted for the raw, make sure you don’t overcook the burger and make the chicken dry.
• The chicken can be changed to pork, prawns, paneer or tofu.
• Any curry spice or paste would work beautifully.
• Replace the apple with a pear, or even a little quince if you have any.
• The original recipe had extra apple as a dipping sauce, which would be good.

This made 6 good sized burgers and one was plenty for me. Mike had two, so six makes two meals for us, which is what I usually do. If that’s doesn’t suit, these burgers will freeze well. You can of course make smaller ones if you have children to feed.