The thing to do with chicken breasts is make chicken burgers. You obviously need the breasts to be skinned and deboned; these are also known as chicken breast fillets. The typical chicken breast fillet is a bit lopsided with a bulky part and a thin point, so put the breast fillet on a chopping board and give it a few gentle whacks on the thick part with a meat tenderising mallet before the braai. This will make it uniform in thickness, which makes for easier braaing and will soften the meat for biting through when it’s on the burger. If you hit it too much, it will disintegrate, and you will be left with chicken mince. You don’t want that so do be gentle with the mallet. The other important step is to marinate the chicken breast after tenderinsing the meat. This assures that the chicken is well marinated all over.
This is stating the obvious, but a chicken burger contains meat, salad, dairy and starch, so it really is a balanced meal all on its own
Ingredients
For 1 burger (multiply for as many burgers you want to make)
- 1 chicken breast
- Jan Braai peri-peri sauce
- olive oil
- 1 hamburger roll
- 2 slices of tomato
- 1 lettuce leaf
- Cheese
- Mayonnaise
Method
- Place each chicken breast fillet fat on a chopping board and lightly pound the thick side with a meat mallet, wine bottle, rolling pin, side of a meat cleaver or any other item of sufficient weight and size. You want the whole fillet more uniform in thickness and this step will make the meat easier to braai, better looking on your burger and softer to bite.
- Place the flattened chicken breast in a ziplock bag and cover with Jan Braai Peri Peri marinade. You can also use a bowl to do this. Marinade the chicken for a few hours, even over night.
- Remove the meat from the marinade. Braai the meat for about 6–10 minutes until it is done. The nice thing about chicken breast fillets is that you can actually see the meat colour changing from raw to ready on the braai.
- Assemble the burger: Buttered roll, chicken breast, cheese, more peri-peri sauce if you feel like it, mayonnaise, tomato and lettuce leaf. When assembling burgers I always like to place the cheese right next to the patty so that the heat of the meat can melt the cheese.
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