This was a relatively quick lunch for my kids, taking roughly 20 minutes to make (while weighing ingredients and taking pictures). I expect that someone who’s reasonably on top of their game can bang this out in 15 without rushing. Bake time is 10min if you’re doing burger buns, or 7min if you’re doing rice patties.
I advise that you use pre-cooked chicken – either canned, or chicken you’ve already baked and shredded. The reason for this is that during the short time these are in the oven, there is no way for the chicken to have reached the right temperature to kill bacteria before the buns are charring. So, the chicken needs to be safe before you put it into the oven. The brief bake time here is to melt the cheese and make the buns crispy, not to actually cook the chicken.
Ingredients:
- 8oz shredded, fully-cooked chicken. I cooked my own by running baked boneless chicken thighs through my Meat Monsoon Machine – watching them explode was awesome. A chicken shredder is another quick way to make this, if you have pre-baked chicken lying around. But I’ve also made it with canned, and it’s fine that way too.
- 8oz shredded cheese (I used Mexican blend, white/yellow)
- 3oz Chik-Fil-A sauce
- 3oz Heinz 57 ketchup
- Optionally, add some hot sauce to the mix. This recipe is a little light on seasoning, and is an ideal candidate to dress up a little with flourishes like seasoning, celery, diced pickles, etc. But my kids tend to prefer basic meat and cheese flavors, so consider this a safe recipe for kids with basic tastes, or a starting point to discover your own family’s preferred tastes. If it’s your first time though, I’d suggest baking one sandwich as-written so that you can decide what to do for the rest of the batch though. The bake time’s only 10 minutes, so it won’t take you long to develop the right mix of extra flavors to make it your own.
- Something to put it on; either:
- Burger buns – I am using the Wal-Mart Great Value ones, which are pretty small. You may optionally add a slice of cheese on the top.
- Rice cakes – my daughter’s favorites are the Quaker cheddar cheese rice cakes. If you do rice cakes, add one slice of cheese (pepperjack or provelone) on top to keep the oils from the chicken from turning the rice cake mushy on top. Also, decrease bake time by a few minutes or check frequently.
This yields 22oz of mix. I used a meticulous two ounces of material per sandwich, and got 8 burger buns and 3 rice cakes made, which was 11 items. If you decide to use larger buns, you should adjust expected yield downward a little, because while 2oz per bun is ok for these slider-esque Great Value buns, it’d be sparse for larger premium buns.
I mixed them in my measurement bowl/scale, which is a terrific tool that I’m likely to use in all my future posts. As you can see, there are measurement marks on the bowl for conventional volumetric measuring, but there’s also an integrated scale below the bowl that lets you weigh things.
I measured out 2oz on each of the burger buns, and another 2oz on each of the rice cakes. My 7yo daughter has been on an “I hate bread” kick for a year or so, but she loves rice cakes and substituting those for bread is the norm in my household.
This is what it looks like before putting it in the oven.
I set the oven to 425 degrees and left it in for 10 minutes. The burger buns came out perfectly crispy, but the rice cakes were just a little bit charred. The next time I do a mixed batch, I intend to take the rice cakes out a few minutes before the burger buns.
As usual, my kids loved it.
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