Monday, February 14, 2011

Using It Up: Apples


Savory Apple-Chicken Sausage
Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet Cookbook Copyright 2009

1 large tart apple, peeled and diced
2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 pound ground chicken

In a large bowl, combine the apple, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Crumble chicken over mixture and mix well, Shape into 8 3-inch patties.

In a large skillet coated with cooking spray, cook patties over medium heat for 5-6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink. Drain if necessary. My patties were kind of thick and took a while to cook through. After browning them, I added some water to the pan and let it cook out and then let them brown a bit more.
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I just bought a huge bag of apples and I still had a few apples left from the last bag. This recipe looked so simple but I wondered if it would taste like sausage or chicken burgers. The verdict? It did taste like sausage, not a super-spicy sausage but it definitely tastes like sausage. Who knew it was so easy to make your own sausage? The apple was a nice touch but I think it could be left out if you were just looking for basic sausage. The apple flavor was more assertive when these were first cooked. It was milder in the leftovers.

I am going to be making this recipe often. That is a guarantee. I'm going to use this to morph Maple-Barbecued Pork Burgers into Maple-Barbecued Chicken Burgers. Those burgers were delicious but came with a huge side of guilt. Don't quote me but I think the ground chicken I used (regular, not the superlean stuff) has 9 grams of fat per 4 ounces. The pork sausage has 16 grams per 2 ounces! So I'm going to play around and see what I can do there.

This will be added to my ground chicken recipe round-up. It's still my favorite ingredient to work with.

8 comments:

M Smith said...

Making sausage is sooo easy! I buy sausage seasoning from Penzey's and just add it to ground turkey or pork. Very yummy.

Anonymous said...

can you freeze these?

The Cookbook Junkie said...

Yes, you can freeze these. I froze them and reheated them in the microwave but you could also put them in a pan on the stove to reheat them, maybe adding a little water to keep them from burning or drying out. Or, for a large batch, they could be reheated in the oven.

Anonymous said...

These were SO yummy! I had never tried making my own patties before, and these turned out better than I thought they would!

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for this recipe! It was a fantastic addition to our Breakfast for Dinner~inspired by the sausage. I would have never in a million yrs. thought of doing this! My family really enjoyed it.

Rose Wood said...

This is a GREAT recipe, thanks! I added a bit of maple syrup to it as well and they came out scrumptious!

Anonymous said...

Hi could you use sweet apples instead of tart ones? I'm sure you could just wasn't sure how much of a difference in the flavor would be?

Anonymous said...

Excellent recipe. Use it for any meal anytime.