It is no secret, my love of spiralized veggies. You guys have seen countless zucchini noodle recipes on this site over the years, along with butternut squash noodles, sweet potato noodles, cucumber ribbons and lots more. But, my friend Ali of Inspiralized, she takes this love to a whole new level and she has built an entire brand on cooking healthfully with the spiralizer! Ali even developed her own incredible spiralizer, The Inspiralizer, better than any spiralizer that existed before. I have switched over to it and I am in love. (You can buy it on Amazon or direct from her site)
You may recall her first book, Inspiralized which came out last year, that I told you all about and shared a recipe from. Ali is back at it again this year with her second book. Inspiralize Everything.
Inspiralize Everything will revolutionize the way you approach vegetables (and fruit) forever! This book is the A to Z (or Apples to Zucchini) encyclopedia-esque resource to spiralizing. Organized by spiralizable ingredients, you can easily flip to the section dedicated to the vegetable (or fruit) that you have on hand, which makes seasonal cooking, experimenting with new ingredients you happen upon at the farmers market or your old trusty favorites, easier than ever.
I love the unique and creative approach to cooking that Ali takes in this book, from appetizers and salads, to soups, entrees, desserts and everything in between this book will keep you inspired. It’s also packed with recipes for all diet types from Paleo to Vegan, with a strong focus on wholesome, clean, real food eating! Nearly every recipe in the book is gluten-free, with a few exceptions due to soy sauce or other very simple to swap out ingredients.
I am excited to be sharing this Italian Style Chicken Sliders recipe from Inspiralize Everything. These feature spiralized zucchini, tucked right into the burgers themselves. I make them small/slider-sized so I can easily wrap them up in little butter lettuce leaves, but you can also make full burger-sized patties and serve on your favorite roll. I especially love that this is a great way to include veggies for kids, for those hard headed veggie-hatin’ hubbies, or if you are just wanting to get an extra boost of some green stuff with your eatin’. I love seeing the gorgeous peaks of the green in the light colored ground chicken.
We, as always, source our ground chicken from local farmers and I prefer ground thigh meat for a little extra fat (read: flavor) but you can use whatever ground meat you’d like and these would be incredible! The spiralized caramelized onions on top are the perfect finishing move, BTW. Don’t skip those.
Grab a copy of Inspiralize Everything now, get yourself an Inspiralizer and get to spiralizing, you guys!! You will never be short of ideas.
Italian Style Chicken Sliders
Ingredients
- 1 small zucchini, spiralized with Blade D, noodles roughly chopped
- 1 pound ground chicken, lean or dark meat, I prefer ground thigh meat
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- sea salt and black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or ghee
- ½ small red onion, peeled, spiralized with Blade A, noodles trimmed
- 8 leaves Boston or Butter lettuce
- 8 Roma, plum tomato slices (about 2 tomatoes)
- 2 cups micro greens
- ketchup for serving
Instructions
- In a large bow, combine the zucchini noodles, chicken, garlic, parsley, oregano, basil, onion powder, and red pepper flakes and season with sea salt and black pepper. Using your hands, form the mixture into eight small patties (or four large). Refrigerate for about 10 minutes to set.
- Heat the olive oil (or ghee) in a grill pan or large skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the onions to one half of the pan and the patties to the other, working in batches if necessary. Season the onions with sea salt and black pepper and sear, tossing occasionally, until mostly caramelized. Sear the chicken patties for 5 minutes per side or until browned and cooked through.
- On a serving platter, lay out the lettuce leaves and place a burger on each (if you made sliders). Top each with a tomato slice, caramelized onion, and micro greens. (Top with another piece of lettuce if you made larger burgers.) Serve which ketchup, if desired.
Notes
