GRILLED HARISSA CHICKEN SUMMER BURGERS

to make harissa chicken burgers you will need:

• 2 large chicken breasts
• 2 tbsp harissa paste (2 syns)
• handful of rocket leaves
• 1 large red onion
• 50g reduced-fat mozarella (4 syns)
• one large beef tomato
• 1 tbsp red pepper houmous (see note below)
• 2 wholemeal rolls (2x HeB)

Things to note: we used a brioche bun for our burger because frankly, we deserved a treat. To make this Slimming World friendly, make sure you use a HEB bun. I don’t want Mags coming round forcing you to grill your fingers as penance.

We also chose to syn the mozzarella rather than HEA it. You can have 70g as a HEA but see, 50g is enough for two, and I couldn’t be arsed to work out percentages of HEA. Have yourself a glass of milk and calm down.

Finally, we didn’t syn the houmous – we used our own recipe  and added roasted peppers into the mix, but if you can’t be bothered with that, 1 tablespoon of red pepper houmous from Tesco is 1.5 syns.

to make harissa chicken burgers you should:

• cut the chicken into chunks and rub the harissa paste all over – leave to marinade as long as you can
• slice the tomatoes, mozzarella and onion into thick slices
• time to sort your onion and tomato: slice both into big, thick slices – about a centimetre thick – and squirt with a bit of oil then:
  • if using an Optigrill, press the manual mode twice to get it to preheat to a medium heat, and then put the thick slices of onion and tomato to grill and cook on both sides for about 7 minutes – you want them softened and charred
  • if you’re using a normal grill – bit of oil, put them on a tray under the grill for a few minutes, but remember to turn them at least once so it’s nice and uniform
• next, cook the chicken:
  • if using an Optigrill, keep the same setting as the onion and tomato and pop the chicken on, then close the lid and cook for as long as it takes for your chicken to cook through – we cut ours into tiny chunks so we were done in five minutes, but please make sure it’s cooked through – the skitters might be good for weight loss but think of your poor nipsy;
  • if using the grill, same as above – cook for a few minutes, remembering to turn things, and make sure it’s cooked through
• whilst that’s cooking, assemble the bun by slicing and spreading houmous along the bottom half, then topping with rocket and the mozzarella slice, followed by the tomato and onion (with maybe a pinch of salt)
• when the chicken is cooked, remove from the plates (or pan or whatever) and spoon on top of the burgers
• quickly toast off the top half of the buns by putting them straight into the Optigrill or under the grill
• enjoy!