INDIAN SPICED CHICKEN BURGER PITAS
I love burger pitas. One of my favorites is a recipe my mom makes, its a mixed lamb and ground beef patty on pitas with tzatziki, lettuce, and tomato. It is absolutely one of my favorite things to eat.
I also love greek chicken pitas, I could die for those. The mixture of a large amount of fresh greens & tomatoes with a creamy cucumber tzatziki on top is just the best mixture of flavors. And when the pita’s all toasty, warm, and soft the flavors just melt in your mouth when you bite into a chunk of greek seasoned chicken.
The recipe I am going to share with you today is a mixture of burger and pita made with chicken thighs. I found this recipe in one of my favorite cook books, Great Food Fast. That Martha really knows her recipes. It is a cookbook about not only fast recipes but healthier and easier ones as well.
That is totally my MO.
These chicken burgers started as chicken thighs, they were then cut into chunks and ground with spices and chives. I used chives instead of green onions, they were a great flavor substitute and a little milder.
I followed the recipe and formed the chicken burger patties into mini sized ones but next time I would make them a lot bigger. The original recipe used pita pockets for the burger base but I used naan bread. The naan could of held up with a larger burger patty. If you choose to make the mini version or the large version, they are just as flavorful.
As you can see the mini burger patties were barely bigger than the grill grates. But my grill master AU handled them perfectly and didn’t even lose one single patty!
By grilling these you get a great char on the chicken and the spices get a slight crunch when you bite into the burgers (just like perfectly cooked real burgers do).
I served this with a cumin yogurt sauce that was also in Great Food Fast and then served it with thinly sliced cucumber (also in the Great Food Fast book).
The cucumber, yogurt, and spices in the chicken were completely complimentary of each other.
And if you know anything about me, I can’t resist a soft fluffy warmed pita, or in this case toasted pita on the grill.
Don’t you just love grilling in this grilling weather?
It makes me so happy. Of course I’m not really involved in the grilling aspects, just the prep.
INDIAN SPICED CHICKEN BURGERS
Ingredients
- CHICKEN
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs about 4
- 1 tablespoon chives or green onions
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne peper
- S&P
- SAUCE
- 1/2 cup plain non fat greek yogurt
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 4 pieces of naan bread or pitas
- 1/2 cucumber
- fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Cut the chicken thighs into chunks. Combine chicken, chives, ginger, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper, and S&P to taste. Mix together and let marinate for 30 minuets.
- Slice cucumber in thin strips. Mix the cumin and yogurt to make a sauce, place in the fridge.
- Once the chicken is marinated (no less than 10 minutes), use a food processor or chopper to grind the chicken until there are no large chunks. Form mixture into 16 mini patties or 8 regular sized ones. The minis will be about 3/4" thick and about 2.5" wide.
- Grill these until opaque and the chicken is cooked through, about 3-5 minuets each side. The larger patties will need to cook longer on each side.
- Toast the naan bread on the grill right before the burgers are done.
- Serve 4 mini patties or 2 larger ones on the toasted naan bread. Layer with cucumber, cumin yogurt sauce and fresh cilantro.
Notes
Maybe these can slide into your line up for the holiday weekend!
Whose ready for a 3 day weekend? This girl. Except not AU because he has to work tomorrow.
Lame.
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