You can turn these super juicy, healthy sliders into traditional burgers if you choose, but the freshness of the flavours make them a great match for a crisp sweet lettuce cup. You can make this a more substantial meal by adding a good carbohydrate like kumara (sweet potato) chips.

Serves 4 (cooking for 1 notes below). Ready in 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of fresh chicken or turkey mince
• 1 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
• 2 tsp sesame oil (optional)
• 1 large spring onion (finely chopped)
• Handful of coriander (optional, roughly chopped)
• 1 large clove of garlic (peeled & minced)
• 1/2 red chilli (deseeded and very finely chopped)
• 1 lettuce leaf per serve
• 1 avocado
• Slices of cucumber
• Salt & pepper
• 1 – 2 large kumara (optional) – use half a kumara if cooking for 1
• Olive oil
• Sweet chilli sauce (optional)

Method:

Turn on your oven to 180 degrees.

If you are having some kumara chips on the side, peel and slice the kumara into chips (not too skinny or they tend to burn) and place on a tray covered with baking paper, drizzle a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Pop into the oven on the middle rack. These will take 25 minutes to cook.

If you have a magi mix you can speed up the sliders by chopping the onion, garlic and chilli finely and then adding the chicken or turkey, fish sauce, sesame oil and seasoning.

Fry a tiny bit of the mixture off in a pan to check for seasoning before you shape them into sliders.

Shape into small sliders or larger burgers and gently fry on both sides in a small amount of good quality oil. This will take about 5 minutes each side. You need to make sure these are cooked through completely, so you might want to pop them in the oven for another 10 minutes or until your kumara chips are ready. If you are not doing kumara chips, just cut through one of the sliders and make sure it is cooked right through, the juices should be clear with no trace of pink at all. If in doubt cook it for a few more minutes.

Wash and pat dry your lettuce cups and place in your plate. Slice your avocado and any other vegetable you would like on your sliders. Place the sliders in the lettuce cup, top with the cucumbers slices, avocado slices and top with a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce.

Cooking for one notes:

You can make this recipe with fresh mince and freeze the mixture. Pop the uncooked mixture into a zip lock bag, squeeze the air out and freeze immediately.

Alternatively, you can cook the whole amount and freeze the cooked sliders one they are cool.

Or you can cook the whole amount, and use the leftover chopped through a salad for lunch the following day.

If you are having kumara chips with this recipe, use 1/2 the kumara for chips, and use the other remaining half for kumara toasts. Cook them at the same time so that you can have the cooked kumara toasts ready in the fridge for under eggs or diced through a salad.