Monday Night Football Burger

Hi friends. Happy Monday!

Fortunately Elliott’s soccer practice was cancelled for tonight so that means we can get in our jammies early, light some candles and be in for the night to watch some Monday Night Football.

Go Niners!

Buffalo chicken wings are synonymous with football, no?

Last night I made another Pinterest find ~ Buffalo Chicken Burgers

They were awwwwesome.

For all my buffalo chicken recipes, I like to use this…

Now, there is the Original Frank’s RedHot Cayenne Pepper Sauce , and then there is the WINGS sauce {pictured above}….I have found that the wings sauce gives whatever buffalo chicken dish you’re making a more authentic buffalo flavor ~ and we don’t want to mess with that, right? Right.

I totally messed up the recipe, but they worked out just fine. I will tell you what I did and you can determine if you’d like to do what I did or follow the original recipe provided in the link above.

1/4 cup light sour cream {I used plain greek yogurt}
1/4 cup reduced fat blue cheese crumbles

1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup diced celery

1 package ground chicken {approx 1.25 lbs.}
1/4 cup hot pepper/wing sauce

2 tablespoons bread crumbs {more if your meat mixture is too sticky}

 1/2 teaspoon celery salt

1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste

4 buns or rolls, split & lightly toasted
For garnish: lettuce, tomato and/or red onion

{I spread a little bit of bottled Ranch dressing on the bun and used up some leftover chopped tomato on top}

Directions
Preheat your pan or grill on medium-high heat, and lightly oil the grate.
Mix the ground chicken, sour cream/yogurt, blue cheese crumbles, chopped celery, worcestershire sauce,  1/4 cup hot sauce, bread crumbs, celery salt, and cayenne pepper together in a mixing bowl until evenly blended. Form into four 3/4-inch-thick patties.
Cook the chicken burgers on the preheated grill 6 to 7 minutes until well marked, flip and cook for another 5-6 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).

Note: ground chicken has a very different texture than ground beef or ground turkey. Once you mix all the ingredients into the meat, it may seem very wet. If this is the case, you can add a little more bread crumbs to bring it together more or you can go ahead and separate into four patties and once they cook up, they will firm up obviously. The original recipe didn’t call for adding the blue cheese into the meat. I like to add things to the burger before cooking it and that is why I chose to add the chopped celery into the meat. You could certainly leave out the celery if you are not a fan. A little grated carrot would also be fun to throw into the meat for added color and crunch. Again, you can refer to the link above to see an alternate way to prepare these.

To roast the spaghetti squash, just cut in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, sprinkle with a little olive oil, salt & pepper and place flesh side {cut side} down onto a foil lined baking sheet and roast at 400* for 50 minutes.

I loved this meal. We’ll be having the leftovers tomorrow night before everyone comes into town for Thanksgiving and the real meals begin!

Enjoy.