Chicken Burgers with Spinach & Mushrooms

It’s that time again, Secret Recipe Club time and this month I was assigned Ginny's wonderful blog, Cooking with Chopin, Living with Elmo. Ginny blogs about life with her husband and two cutie-patootie boys and she shares wonderful real food recipes with her readers. While most of her recipes are based on real unprocessed foods, she does sometimes venture off and use ingredients that aren't quite as healthy, but oh-so delicious, like when she was assigned my blog for Secret Recipe Club back in October 2011 and using my Rolo Brownie Bites with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting she made Ferraro Rocher Brownie Bites with Caramel-Cream Cheese Icing.

Whether whole food and healthy or one of her delicious sinful treats Ginny has something for everyone on her blog. So many of her recipes called to me including her Braised chicken with orange and pistachios, Australian chicken strudel and the recipe I chose, Turkey burgers with spinach and shallots. Can you tell that I was in the mood for some poultry?

 

Ginny does a wonderful job walking you through the steps of a recipe showing lots of pictures and giving plenty of instruction so cooking from her blog is easy-peasy, just like the recipe I chose.

 

I made a few changes to Ginny's recipe, most noticeably, I used chicken instead of turkey and that's just because I had chicken breast in the house which I easily ground up to use in the recipe.

 

As I didn't have shallots, I used some extra onion and garlic. I pretty much followed Ginny's directions and they were perfect...just like the burgers.

 

The burgers were perfectly seared on the outside and deliciously moist and tender inside. The addition of the mushrooms added so much moisture and umami. The burgers were a huge success with all of us here in the Cook Lisa Cook house and even my spinach and mushroom hating Maisie thought they were wonderful and put dibs in for the leftover burger and she enjoyed it for lunch the following day.

So how did I get my spinach and mushroom hating girl to even try the burgers? The mushrooms I minced finely and they weren't overly noticeable mixed in with the chicken and other ingredients. Spinach of course is more difficult to hide but thankfully Maisie loves salad so I just told her it was salad cooked right into the burger...I just didn't tell her that it was spinach salad ;)

Check out Ginny's blog and all her wonderful recipes and give this one a try, you won't be disappointed.

 

Chicken Burgers with Spinach & Mushrooms

Makes 4 large burgers

• 1 10-ounce box chopped spinach, thawed
• 1 pound ground lean chicken breast (or ground turkey breast)
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped, divided
• 5 TBS. minced onion, divided
• 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
• 10 basil leaves, shredded or chopped
• Handful of fresh parsley, chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried parsley)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 3 TBS. coconut oil, divided
• 14 oz. mushrooms, minced finely
• 1/2 cup Cheaters Chicken Soup or chicken stock
• Desired toppings & condiments (sautéed onions, peppers or mushrooms, mustard, mayo, ketchup, etc.)

Begin by preparing the sautéed mushroom mixture. In a small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Sauté 3 TBS. onion and 3 garlic cloves until fragrant & tender and then add the mushrooms. Stir occasionally and cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the chicken stock and cook until it has mostly evaporated from the pan (about 2-3 minutes).

Squeeze the water out of the thawed spinach and add to a large mixing bowl. to the same bowl add the ground chicken, mushroom mixture, spinach, remaining onion and garlic, dry mustard, basil, parsley, and salt & pepper. Mix together well and divide and then section the mixture into four equal parts. Form each part into an inch-thick patty.

Preheat a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Swirl the remaining 2 tablespoons of coconut oil around the pan to coat. Cook the patties 5-6 minutes on each side, the pan loosely covered with a pan lid (resist the urge to flip unless you think they're burning), until the chicken is cooked through. Turn the heat off under the pan.

Serve burgers with desired toppings and/or condiments.

Enjoy!

My previous Secret Recipe Club Recipe Posts:

Paradise Mango Curried Shrimp Laura Goodenough’s Apple Coffee Cake Loaded Potato Soup Lemon Almond Biscotti Creamy Mints Thai Peanut Noodles with Chicken Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings Fried Green Tomatoes Chicken Satay Noodle Salad Double Chocolate Mousse Cake Candied Popcorn Fruit, Nut & Poppy Seed Chicken Salad Broiled Sushi Health(ier) Peanut Brittle Crunchy Fudgy Heart Bites Texas Chicken with Lime Butter Pork Belly Soup with Collard Greens Thin Mint Irish Coffee Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies Welsh Cakes Nutella Crêpes Cilantro Lime Chicken Holy Guacamole and Home Style Chicken Curry