Jalapeno Chicken Burgers 2 Ways

I have learned recently that sometimes cooking with just a few simple ingredients creates the best tasting results.  These burgers were definitely a prime example of that!  Super easy to make, not many ingredients, and very full of flavor!  I am showing you the 2 ways in which Dan and I prepared them, but they will taste great no matter how you like to eat burgers. :)

Jalapeno Chicken Burgers (2 Ways)

Yield: 4 burgers

Adapted from Once a Month Mom

Ingredients

1 lb ground chicken

½ cup onion, diced

2 T fresh basil, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ jalapeno, seeds removed and diced

¾ tsp cumin

¾ tsp smoked paprika

¾ tsp red pepper flakes

Directions

1) Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.

2) Form mixture into 4 patties.

3) Grill over medium high until burger is fully cooked.  Flip once when the bottom no longer sticks to the grill.  About 6-7 minutes per side.

I mentioned above that I prepared these burgers 2 ways: The first was with guacamole, and the second was with grilled pineapple.  Both were delicious, but I may be biased toward the grilled pineapple version just because grilled pineapple is probably one of my favorite foods.

With Guacamole

For the guacamole, you can really mix it up anyway you would like, or you can use store bought guacamole.  I mashed almost one avocado (there were unfortunately several bad spots I had to discard), then mixed in the juice from about a quarter of a lime, a couple spoonfuls of store bought salsa, a few dashes of garlic powder, and a few dashes of pepper.  This made enough for 2 burgers.  Like I said, get creative with guac!  I had to adjust this because of the ingredients I had on hand, but your typical guacamole can be as simple as avocado, lime juice, diced red onion, diced tomato, and some pepper and/or salt.

With Grilled Pineapple

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE pineapple.  I’m pretty sure I could eat a whole one by myself (I haven’t actually tried this yet, pineapple is just really that good).  Grilled pineapple is relatively simple: It only takes about 5 minutes per side over high heat to get some nice char marks.  I used my electric compact grill, which worked great as well.  High heat, 5 minutes per side, and it’s ready to top off the burgers!  I also filled in the middle of the pineapple (after I cut out the core) with some Peach-Strawberry Guacamole that I had made as our appetizer with sweet potato chips.  See the next post for this recipe!