While I’m training for Regionals, my social life is EXTREMELY exciting. I mean I go out every night, drink generous amounts of alcohol, and indulge in dessert parties regularly. I just lied. About everything. My social life is somewhat of a bore for the moment while I try to stick with my diet and actually sleep on the weekends since that doesn’t occur during the week. So Friday nights are often devoted to making a meal that makes me feel like i’m getting a good wholesome cheat in, while still maintaining my diet. Yeah, life sucks when I feel the need to bake, but other than that, i’ve come up with some wicked good recipes in the meantime.
This meal came to me when I was looking at my new favorite food porn blog. How Sweet It Is is absolutely one of the best food porn blogs out there. What’s food porn, you ask? Food porn includes websites that fill their pages with incredibly delicious foods that increase your ass size dramatically and send you on the path to diabetes within a week of creating their recipes. Even though I only eat paleo, I truly appreciate a good read along with a naughty meal. Jessica of How Sweet It Is is truly hilarious and makes some beautiful dishes, her photography skills are inspiring. I wish I could eat some of the stuff she comes up with. But for now, i’ll satisfy my needs in food porn. I recommend you do the same. And check out her blog.
BBQ Chicken Burgers with Crispy Sweet Potato Fries
Ingredients
- 1–1.5 lbs ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup BBQ sauce
- 1 onion, sliced
- BBQ sauce for topping
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, for cooking the burgers (unless you grill them)
- 1–2 sweet potatoes, thinly sliced to french fry thickness–let’s go with McD’s thickness, not Wendy’s (don’t act like you’ve never tried their fries you paleo purist freak)
- 2–3 tablespoons avocado oil*
- salt, to top fries with
Instructions
Start with the fries
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- First, slice up your sweet potato (keeping the skin ON). Slice them to desired thickness but remember that the thinner they are, the more likely the are to be crisp!
- Put sweet potato fries into a large bowl and add your avocado oil and salt. Stir them up a bit until they are completely covered and glistening happy as can be.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (always have better results AND better clean up with parchment paper) and add fries on the sheet. Space out the fries so they are not overlapping–you may have to use 2 cookie sheets depending on the size of your sweet potato!
- Add to the oven to cook for 25-30 minutes of until desired crispiness occurs!
- While the fries cook, whip up your BBQ sauce!
For the BBQ sauce
- (6oz) can tomato paste
- onion, minced
- /2 cup apple cider vinegar
- /3 cup water or broth
- tablespoons apple butter (optional)
- tablespoon ground mustard (no sugar added)
- garlic cloves, minced
- tsp cayenne pepper
- /4 teaspoon cinnamon
- /4 teaspoon allspice
- pinch or two of ground cloves
- tsp sea salt
- /2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- splash of hot sauce, to taste
- In a pot, add some olive oil (or other fat) and brown the onion–about 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and stir together to cook a bit more.
- Add all other ingredients and mix together, then let simmer for 10-15 minutes (or longer if you have time-I usually want to eat as quick as possible).
- Once the BBQ sauce is simmering, finish the meal off with preparing your burgers!
For the BBQ burgers
- Grab the same bowl you used to coat your fries, and add your chicken, 1/4 cup BBQ sauce (right off of the stove!), spices, salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.
- Heat up a large skillet over medium-high heat and add your olive oil.
- Form your burgers into 4-5 patties and add to hot skillet. Cook for about 8 minutes/side.
- While the burgers begin to brown up, grab a small skillet out and add a bit more olive oil to it and add your sliced onions and some salt to saute up and carmelize a bit. This will take about 10 minutes, just be sure to push the onions around a bit and cover them if you want them to cook a bit faster.
Notes
Once the burgers are done, set them on a plate and top with BBQ sauce, onions, and grab some crispy sweet potato fries to put along side. You now have yourself one hell of a Friday night singles dinner!
*You do not NEED to use avocado but I do RECOMMEND it!! These were the first fries i’ve been able to get crunchy and I think it is based upon the fact I used avocado oil instead of olive oil. But don’t worry, i’ll be testing this theory almost every weekend! Single = mass quantities of sweet potato fries made!
Grocery List Helper:
- Ground Chicken: on sale at Sunflower Market for $1.99/lb
- Spices: You know it, Kroger from King Soopers!
- Sweet Potatoes and Onions: on sale at Sunflower Market
Yum! I'm excited to try this one.
I assume the BBQ makes more than 1/4 cup. How long will the rest last????
I'm not totally sure Amy. I'm guessing probably more than a week in a closed container!
There are a few areas in the recipe that just show /2 cut or /3 cup as well as “tablespoons”. Anyway you can help clarify some of those? Looking for a recipe I can make in bulk for the summer! Thanks and great website! I just started following!
Check out my newer recipe of that old recipe, it got all messed up when i transferred my old website over. https://paleomg.com/leftovers-bbq-chicken-burgers-crispy-sweet-potato-fries/
So I’ve started taking down some of your recipes to try myself. I cannot wait to make this!
Those sweet potato fries look pretty dang delicious. Thanks for another great recipe!
That is a great recipe Juli! I will try it out on the weekend! Thanks for sharing!