Lean Chicken Chorizo Recipe

I like the flavor of chorizo but I'm not thrilled with its ingredients. Most commercial chorizo is very low quality food and quite unhealthy. It's made with parts of the pig most people don't want to talk about, very high in calories and saturated fat, usually has a variety of chemicals I feel have no place in food, often has red food coloring.

Since I've been eating much healthier I don't eat chorizo anymore, but I do miss it. So I decided to make a chorizo substitute.

Recipe: Lean Chicken Chorizo

Summary: Low fat healthy chicken chorizo

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground chicken (I used 99% Lean Smart Chicken)
• 6 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 tablespoon sharp paprika
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/3 cup distilled white vinegar

Instructions

• Mix it all up throughly or use a food processor to combine it.
• Split into 8 equal sized patties and fry for 4 minutes on a side in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. You'll want to use a small amount of oil in the skillet so that the patties don't stick. I just spritzed my skillet with some spray oil.

Quick Notes

* These taste a lot like chorizo to me. Be warned that they're very dry as there is so little fat in them. But they serve well as a chorizo replacement inside an omelet or quesadilla, and you're not in doubt about what you're eating.

* Nutritionally you're looking at one two ounce patty providing 65 calories, .5 grams of fat, 13 grams of protein, .5 grabs of carbohydrates and about 255 mg of sodium.

Cooking time (duration): 30

Diet (other): Low calorie, Reduced fat, Reduced carbohydrate, High protein

Number of servings (yield): 8

Culinary tradition: Spanish

One last thing - if you need a source for good spices, check out www.tulsadesigns.com - they have stores in quite a few cities now and also do a very good mail order business. They offer a large variety of spices, and when you buy from them you know you're getting recently ground fresh spices instead of stuff that's been sitting on the supermarket shelf for who knows how long. I buy almost all of the spices I use directly from them.

[nutr-label servings='8' servingsize='2oz' calories='65' totalfat='.5' satfat='0' carbohydrates='.5' cholesterol='9' protein='13' sodium='255']