Olive and Feta Chicken Burgers w/ Coupon Alerts

Much to my surprise, my husband has developed a love of Feta cheese after I first introduced it to him on  a Greek salad a few weeks ago. I also found a jar of Kalamata olives that was on sale and small enough to make trying them for the first time not such an investment, and he loves those too. They are marinated in a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, olive oil and a blend of herbs, and I have to agree with him, they are really delicious.

I like the ground chicken matched up with these flavors as opposed to beef, which I like to limit our intake of anyway. While I do love that chicken is much easier to find raised, fed and processed more naturally and/or organically than turkey, I also much prefer the flavor of ground chicken over ground turkey. Even when it's very lean, it seems to be easier to keep moist as well. I love the Feta in this burger, because it is not a melting cheese like cheddar/jack/colby, so you won't have a huge mess in your oven or on your grill from burning cheese. And thanks to their fat content, the olives stay nice and lubricated and don't turn into little dry, burned bits. These proportions are perfect for us, it makes two adult-sized burgers and three perfectly kid-sized burgers. You could definitely get 4 adult-sized burgers out of it, and it's easy to adjust if you need more.

If you go to the coupons tab on the Facebook page for Athenos products, you can print a buy one get one (BOGO) free coupon for their Feta cheese. I use the reduced fat, but there are many fun flavor variations in addition to the original. I also used a $1.00 off Smart Chicken I recently alerted you to in a post, which you can find and print at Smart Chicken's Facebook page. The Kalamata olives were my splurge in this recipe, but I find them well worth even the regular price for what ends up being a fairly small cost per recipe. If you would rather, good ol' regular black olives would work well too, and they would be considerably cheaper in regards to your initial investment (though could be more expensive per recipe), especially if you don't have one of those fun olive bars in your grocery store either and jars are your only option.

I served these on 100% whole wheat buns (though they are great without buns too) on sale for $1.69/pkg of eight, of which we  ate five, and with spinach, red onion, cucumber and tomato form the garden for topping. On the side we had some Alexia all natural sweet potato fries, which were $2 a bag after a sale and my $1 off coupon, which you can find on Alexia's website. We will eat about 3/4 of the bag, so combined with the remaining half of the large bag of broccoli I got for $2 at the farmers market, that puts us at $8.38 for a hardy and filling yet healthful meal for five of us, less than a similar meal for one person would cost in a restaurant!


Olive and Feta Chicken Burgers

1 lb ground chicken
1/3 cup Kalamata olives, chopped (about 12 olives)
1/3 cup Feta cheese, crumbled
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Place chicken in a large mixing bowl, add all other ingredients and gently mix with your hands just until ingredients are well combined. Shape into 4-5 patties and cook to a safe internal temperature (165 degrees for ground chicken/turkey) using desired method. I use a charcoal grill and cook 5 patties for approximately 7 minutes on the first side and 5 minutes on the other side.

Cost:

Ground chicken (Smart Chicken): On sale for $3.99/lb, used $1 off coupon = $2.99

Feta cheese: $3.29/pkg, used BOGO free coupon ($1.65 each), used 1/2 of one pkg = $.83

Kalamata olives: on sale for $4.99/16 oz jar, used apprx 1/5 = $1.00

Total Cost: $4.82

Four Servings: $1.21 per serving

Five Servings: $.97 per serving