Mexican Grilled Chicken Burgers
South-of-the-Border Seasonings Enliven These Healthy Burgers
Using Mexican spices and juicy accompaniments keeps healthy ground chicken breast flavorful and moist when making healthy grilled burgers.
Healthy eating seems to be on the minds of everyone today. And chicken breasts have become an ever-more-favorite choice of main-course meat. So it's only natural, then, that ground chicken should be stepping up to take the place of ground beef in grilled burger recipes to make low-fat burgers. And demand gets only greater when the weather warms up and folks start looking for healthy grilling recipes.
Chicken breasts have become a widespread favorite for healthy grilling. Being low in fat, however, ground chicken can turn dry quickly when subject to the heat of the grill, and ground white meat chicken can also wind up tasting a bit bland. Although they aren't too spicy, the mixture of authentic Mexican spices in this grill recipe not only livens them up but also increases the moisture content, resulting in juicy, flavorful burgers.
Mexican Chicken Breast Burgers
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds ground chicken breast
- 1 can (8 3/4 ounces) whole-kernel sweet corn, drained
- 1 small sweet onion (such as Maui onion, Vidalia onion, or red onion), minced
- 2 teaspoons mild pure red chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 clove garlic, peeled
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon reduced-fat mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons minced mild green canned Ortega chilies
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 4 good-quality soft sandwich rolls or burger buns, split
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 Roma (plum) tomatoes, sliced
- Preheat the grill or broiler.
- Meanwhile, prepare the chicken burger mixture. In a mixing bowl, put the ground chicken, corn, onion, chili powder, and cumin. Press the garlic cloves through a garlic press into the bowl.
- Using clean hands, lightly but thoroughly combine all the ingredients until well blended. Form the mixture into four equal circular patties about 3/4 inch thick. Set aside on a plate. Wash your hands thoroughly.
- In a small bowl, stir together the Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and mild green chilies. Set aside. Brush the cut sides of the rolls with the olive oil. Set aside.
- Carefully oil the grill rack. Season the chicken burgers generously on both sides with salt and pepper to taste. Place the burgers on the grill rack and cook, turning once, until they are well browned and cooked through, 12 to 14 minutes total. During the last 2 minutes or so, put the roll halves cut sides down on the grill to toast until golden, taking care not to char them.
- Place a chicken burger on the bottom half of each roll and top it with 2 or 3 tomato slices. Serve with the green chili mustard for guests to spread on their burgers to taste.
Substitutions and Variations
- If you can't find ground chicken breast in the market, buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trim them well, cut into 1-inch cubes, and firm them up in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then, chop the chicken breasts in a food processor with the stainless-steel blade, pulsing the machine until the mixture is evenly chopped but still slightly coarse.
- Substitute ground turkey for the chicken, if you like.
- For especially luscious (though admitted higher-fat) burgers, top them with slices of Monterey Jack, pepper Jack, or medium-to-sharp Cheddar cheese 1 to 2 minutes before the burgers are done.
- Add thinly sliced ripe Hass-style avocado to each burger.
Try this healthy burger recipe the next time you're looking for grilling recipes, and it may just change the way you think about healthy eating and healthy grilling.
