Most of you know by now that Nick and I just moved from a tiny apartment into a nice big house. We had to give up sunny, sandy Florida for Oklahoma, but I can’t say I miss that old apartment even the slightest bit. Along with a house comes the acquisition of a back yard. Kaiser is probably the one most excited about this, but Nick isn’t far behind. He had a long 4 months without his favorite cooking appliance, so the first thing he did after arriving in Oklahoma was run out to Lowes and buy his new best friend…
Yup, it’s gonna be a good summer. The first night together in the new house, Nick grilled up some delicious steak and corn on the cob. But I had to put a stop to that. I love a good steak, but grilling doesn’t always make for good recipe creating. After all, pretty much anyone can figure out how to sprinkle a steak with salt and pepper and throw it on the grill.
The wheels started turning, and I started thinking up recipes for the grill. I’m pretty sure it’ll be at least a couple weeks before I’m allowed to use my wonderful new gas stove, and I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging without any new recipes!
I’ve mentioned before how much Nick loves wings (Buffalo Wild Wings, in particular– thank goodness, there’s one in Enid), and I’ve been known to dream about things like Pizzanini’s buffalo chicken pizza, or my famous buffalo chicken Superbowl dip.
Somehow, the crazy idea of Buffalo Chicken Burgers came into my head. I Googled it, and found out I am not the only crazy one! So I followed a recipe I found (with a few slight changes), and… wow.
Buffalo Chicken Burgers with Blue Cheese Spread
(from Good Housekeeping)
makes 4 burgers
- 1/4 cup light sour cream
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
- 2 tsp cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 lb ground chicken (or turkey breast)
- 1 large stalk celery, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp Frank’s RedHot Buffalo sauce
- Nonstick cooking spray
Start with the blue cheese spread.
Combine sour cream, mayo, blue cheese, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. I used a jar because I thought we’d have have leftovers and it would be easy to store. Silly me, I forget that four servings feeds just the 2 of us.
Mix well and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, combine ground chicken, celery and hot sauce. I hated to use my hands (salmonella, eww!), but it was really the only effective way to mix it.
Form the mixture into 4 equal patties. Spray each side with nonstick spray.
Heat the grill to medium heat, and grill the burgers 12-14 minutes.
Flipping once.
The burgers should reach an internal temp of 170 degrees, but if you have a grill master boyfriend/husband/roommate…they’ll just KNOW when they’re done.
The burgers would be great served on buns, but we’re still recovering from a week of eating out (while all our stuff was packed), so we went the healthier route and served them over lettuce and tomato. With carrots and celery, of course. All wings need carrots and celery.
These burgers were awesome! Surprisingly, even though I used the Hot Buffalo Franks (a lot spicier than just the regular Buffalo), the cooking process definitely mellowed out the spice and they had nice Buffalo flavor without being too hot. This was a good thing because Nick doesn’t like the super spicy Buffalo and I was afraid they were going to be too hot. I added extra sauce to the top of mine, and we were both happy. A very successful first grilling recipe!
Ummmm, don’t hate me, but when I saw the picture of Nick over the grill, I thought it was Mick. And everytime I come back to it I get confused again lol