Chicken Pesto Burger

25 Apr 2014

Chicken pesto burger – this is getting weirder dear. But it tastes so good, that’s clear!

Summary

Yield	Servings
Prep time	15 minutes
Cooking time
Total time	15 minutes

Description

Pesto is not just for pasta. Thanks to my husband who suggested to use our leftover pesto for chicken, and craving for a burger-style meal, this is what had turned into.

No, we did not use homemade pesto (yet) this time. We bought a green pesto from store (of high quality is a top priority, which means made with pure and natural ingredients). Store-bought pesto is also a must when you run out of time and simply want a wholesome quick meal.

Also, along with this recipe, let me notify that we used my less perfect homemade bagel. It’s hard to find bagels in the Philippines, so I tried to make some. Didn’t taste like bagel, but it sure tasted like bread of some sort. But still, ‘twas a bread – is all this burger needs.

Ingredients

1 lb

chicken breast fillet (boneless, fatless chicken breast)

Bagels or any bread of your choice

Instructions

for marinade:
¼ c prepared green pesto
2T olive oil

for cream cheese pesto spread:
2T cream cheese, softened
2t prepared green pesto

for extra ingredients (your choice):
1 large beef-stake tomato (you can use any size though), thinly sliced across
2-3 lettuce leaves
1 red or white onion, thinly sliced
1 avocado flesh wedges
1t lemon juice
fresh basil leaves

How to:

Slice chicken breast fillet into 1.5-2 inches width strips.

Marinating chicken. Mix together prepared green pesto and oil. Using your hand, marinade the chicken strips with this mixture. Massage marinade allover of each chicken strip so it is evenly distributed. Place in refrigerator to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Preparing cream cheese-pesto dressing. Mix together softened cream cheese and prepared pesto. Set aside.

Cooking chicken strips. Heat a non-stick pan, or heavy skillet over medium heat. Add in chicken and cook until both sides are golden brown, or browned. Make sure to check if the inside of the meat is no longer pink.

Assembling the burger. Slice bagel or any bread of your choice in half. Smear cream-cheese pesto dressing on one side or both (as you wish).

Layer cooked chicken and the rest of extra ingredients to your liking. I do hate to follow rules that don’t need to be followed, which this time is layering my burger elements in different direction (with bread as an exception) as pictured above.

Enjoy!