Cheddar Bacon Ranch Chicken Burgers

My special someone and I have a designated weeknight set aside for date night.  The first item on the agenda is always a home cooked meal.  What do I make?  Well, Shepherd's Pie, Burritos, Penne alla Vodka,  General Tso's Chicken, and Chicken Marsala are a few of the frequent hitters.  The rest of the time I turn to the internet in search of new dinners.  As with all first time recipes, some are hits, some are misses.  And some just knock it out of the park. 


I made a few changes.  The original recipe used a combination of bread crumbs and panko, which seemed a little fussy for my purposes.  It also had bacon in the burgers, but I chose to just add bacon as a topping.  Speaking of toppings, the final change is that the original had more ranch dressing as a topping.  The first night that I made this, I didn't have any ranch, so I used mayo instead and never looked back.  So without further ado, here is our newest favorite dinner.

Ingredients
(Adapted from Sweet Tooth Sweet Life)
Yield: 4 servings

For the burgers:

• 1 lb ground chicken
• ¾ cup Panko bread crumbs
• ⅓ cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1 clove garlic (or 1 teaspoon dried garlic)
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon dry Ranch dressing mix

For serving:

• Buns
• Cheddar cheese slices
• Lettuce
• Tomato
• Mayo

 Method
Combine the panko, seasoned salt, basil, and oregano.

Mix in the onion and garlic.

Next up, the chicken.

 Combine everything by hand.

Form into four patties.  We cooked up two and froze two.

Now cook them.  Option 1: medium high skillet, about 4 minutes per side.  Option 2: ask your special someone to throw them on the grill.  End game for both methods: internal temperature of 160° F

Meanwhile, build up the toppings.

Add cheese during the last minutes of cooking.

Remove burgers from skillet/grill.

Add burgers to buns

Add fries and eat.