Chicken Patties

I have been searching for a good replacement for the frozen chicken nuggets I used to buy. Since they quickly became our go-to dinner, I just stopped buying them. Yup, cold turkey. Even though the box toted "All Natural" across the top, the ingredients list revealed hydrogenated oils, refined flour, and there's no way that meat came from cage-free chickens. No big deal every once in a while, but since these were being consumed in bulk on a regular basis I set myself out on a mission to change that!

I got distracted from my search when I found a recipe for Chicken Patties in my Nourishing Traditions cookbook. I strayed off-course for these babies when I noticed the recipe listed things like spinach, onions, red peppers, and other veggies my kiddos won't touch with a 10-foot pole. "Why not?", thought I, and I gave them a try.

Here's the recipe:

2 lbs ground chicken*

2 cups whole grain bread crumbs*

1 cup cream

3/4 cup cooked spinach, chopped and well drained*

1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 red pepper, finely chopped

2 eggs

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp dried thyme

4 T butter

4 T extra virgin olive oil

Soak bread crumbs in cream. Mix chicken with bread crumb mixture, spinach, onion, pepper, eggs and seasonings.

Form into patties.

Saute about 7 minutes per side in butter and olive oil, or until cooked through.

Now, here's the scoop. This recipe has got lots of ingredients I don't normally keep on hand, lots of chopping, and some prepwork. But, the cooking is minimal. This is a GREAT recipe for freezing. I didn't even double it (since it was my first time making it) and was able to freeze enough for probably 2-3 more family meals, more if I just need to pull a patty out for the kids. Next time I will definitely at least double this meal, because the whole family enjoyed it and meals like those are sure hard to come by!

Here's my patties, separated by parchment paper, ready to freeze:

*About the ingredients: The ground chicken at my local market was "all-natural", but didn't say anything about what the chickens were fed. So, for the same price, I grabbed a package each of boneless, skinless, organic, free-range chicken breasts and thighs and had the butcher grind them for me. To make the bread crumbs, I just lightly toasted a few slices of my whole-grain bread and pulsed them in the food processor. The recipe actually took more bread crumbs than it called for. I had spinach on-hand, so there was no need to buy a bag of frozen stuff. Not a bad idea if you don't love cooking spinach, but anytime I've used frozen spinach for a recipe it's been a pain to drain so it's almost easier to just cook the pre-washed, bagged spinach.

Like I said, our whole family thoroughly enjoyed this! I made a white-wine cream sauce for Jon & I, and he went to town making a lovely presentation of it. And here's a pic of the girl num-num-numming away: