Burger Bowls with Avocado Pesto Sauce

These Burger Bowls are everything you love about burgers, but served as a bowl. The chicken burger patties are super easy to make and so flavorful. They are grilled or cooked in a pan, then served on a bed of lettuce with sweet potato fries and some delicious avocado pesto. You will LOVE them!

Raise your hand if you like bunless burgers as much as I do! I’ve always felt like a bit of a weirdo when I tell people I prefer to eat burgers without the bun.

Hamburger buns help keep all the burger ingredients together, but they also ‘water down’ the burger and get in the way of all the good stuff. Do you feel the same?

These Chili Chicken Burger Bowls are all the good things. There’s no need to water them down with a silly bun.

All the love for these burger bowls

• These chicken burgers are so flavorful that you might just mistake them for a meat burger. I’m not joking. The first time I made them, we were blown away by how flavorful they are.
• They’re super easy to make. If you can mix together some ground chicken, onion, parsley, chili powder, salt, and pepper then you can make these.
• You can cook the chili chicken burgers on your BBQ or in a pan on your stovetop. Your choice!
• If you are like me and love a good bunless chicken burger, make the recipe as it is. If there’s someone at the table who loves a traditional burger (like my handsome man), buy them a bun for their chili chicken burger. This is a recipe that can keep everyone happy really easily.

If you love chicken burgers, also try our spinach feta chicken burgers!

Three tricks to making burger bowls

Burgers aren’t tricky to make, but making a really good burger isn’t as easy as it sounds. The problem is that almost all the recipes you find online call for adding unnecessary ingredients to the ground meat. The two that irk me the most are eggs and breadcrumbs.

I know that those two things have been mixed into burgers for as long as burgers have been around. But I’m begging you, please stop putting them in! They’re totally unnecessary and only make the burgers tough.

I’ve been toying with sharing my beef burger recipe with you, but it’s so simple that it doesn’t seem right to share it. Ground beef (always regular, NEVER lean) + salt + pepper. They’re the best burgers ever.

So trick #1 is to never ever ever add eggs or breadcrumbs to your burgers. 

Trick #2 – Use a gentle hand when you’re forming the patties. Don’t try to muscle them together. Just gently form the patties and let your BBQ do the job of getting them to hold together.

When meat cooks, the proteins bind together. This is why you don’t need eggs or breadcrumbs to hold burger patties together. When they are not cooked, they feel very delicate. Once you cook the meat, the proteins bind the patties together.

Trick #3 – Don’t overcook your burgers. You want your chicken burgers to be 165 degrees Fahrenheit or less. 165 is the sweet spot for fully cooked, safe-to-eat chicken that remains tender and juicy.

We’re always so afraid of undercooked chicken that we tend to go WAY overboard and cook it until it’s barely edible. I always use a meat thermometer so that I know the burgers are both safe to eat and not overcooked.

Putting together your Burger Bowls

So now that you’ve got the most delicious chili chicken burger patty staring at you in the face, we need to put it all together. There’s a lot of leeway here and really no wrong way to serve these. Here’s how I like them best:

♡  With loads of avocado pesto. This is really just a basic pesto sauce that swaps the Parmesan cheese for avocado. It changes it into a mashup between guacamole and pesto. Sounds a bit strange, but it’s so good. Even my 2-year-old daughter kept asking for “More ‘cado sauce, peeze.”

♡  With all the Cajun Sweet Potato Fries. I love these easy-to-make fries, and it’s a bonus that they’re so delicious. If you want to add them to your chili chicken burger bowls, pop them into the oven first, then start making the burgers.

♡  With a big bed of lettuce. I don’t get fancy here and make a big salad. All I do is put a few handfuls of salad greens in the bottom of the bowl. When you top them with the chili chicken burger, avocado pesto, and some sweet potato fries, the heat and oil from those three things are enough to soften the greens just enough to make them very salad-like.

♡  With a sprinkling of cherry tomatoes, pine nuts, and avocado. Technically, these extra toppings aren’t necessary, but they do add even more textures and flavors to an already delicious bowl. If you have them on hand, go for it!

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4.93 stars (13 ratings)

Burger Bowls Recipe

Prep: 15 minutes mins

Cook: 12 minutes mins

Total: 27 minutes mins

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These Burger Bowls are everything you love about burgers but served as a bowl. The chicken burger patties are super easy to make and so flavorful. They are grilled or cooked in a pan then served on a bed of lettuce with sweet potato fries and some delicious avocado pesto. You will LOVE them!

4

Ingredients

Chicken Burger Patties

• ▢ 1 lb. ground chicken
• ▢ ¼ cup each: minced red onion and chopped parsley
• ▢ 1 tablespoon chili powder
• ▢ 2 teaspoons sea salt
• ▢ ½ teaspoon black pepper

Avocado Pesto

• ▢ ½ cup each: basil leaves and parsley (packed)
• ▢ ¼ cup each pine nuts and olive oil
• ▢ Juice from ½ lemon
• ▢ ¾ teaspoon sea salt
• ▢ 1 large avocado (peeled and pitted)

The Burger Bowls

• ▢ A few handfuls of lettuce for each bowl
• ▢ Cherry tomatoes (cut in half)
• ▢ A sprinkle of pine nuts (or your favorite nut)
• ▢ Optional: Cajun Sweet Potato Fries (recipe linked)

Instructions 

• If you are making the Cajun Sweet Potato Fries, start those first.
• In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the ground chicken, red onion, parsley, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Form into 4 patties and set them on a plate.
  1 lb. ground chicken, ¼ cup each: minced red onion and chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 2 teaspoons sea salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper
• Place the basil, parsley, pine nuts, olive oil, lemon juice, and sea salt in your blender and blend on medium speed until mostly smooth. Add the avocado and blend again, adding 2-4 tablespoons of water to thin the pesto if needed.
  ½ cup each: basil leaves and parsley, ¼ cup each pine nuts and olive oil, Juice from ½ lemon, ¾ teaspoon sea salt, 1 large avocado
• Cook the chicken burgers either on your BBQ or in a non-stick pan on your stove on medium-high heat for 12 minutes, flipping halfway through cooking.
• To assemble the bowls, place a few handfuls of greens in each bowl and top with the fries, a burger patty, some avocado pesto, and some cherry tomatoes and pine nuts.
  A few handfuls of lettuce for each bowl, Cherry tomatoes, A sprinkle of pine nuts

Nutrition

Serving: 1 serving = ¼ of the recipe, Calories: 516kcal (26%), Carbohydrates: 19g (6%), Protein: 27g (54%), Fat: 40g (62%), Saturated Fat: 6g (38%), Polyunsaturated Fat: 9g, Monounsaturated Fat: 22g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 98mg (33%), Sodium: 1783mg (78%), Potassium: 1651mg (47%), Fiber: 9g (38%), Sugar: 5g (6%), Vitamin A: 19346IU (387%), Vitamin C: 57mg (69%), Calcium: 136mg (14%), Iron: 6mg (33%)

© Author Kristen Stevens

We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.

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