Asian Chicken Burgers and Review of “The Best and the Lightest” Cookbook

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Asian Chicken Sliders | The Novice Housewife

With Superbowl this Sunday and game day recipes doing the rounds, I too have a recipe to share with you today that’s perfect for this weekend and won’t be that waist damaging.

Minced chicken combined with asian flavors make some delicious chicken burgers and if you make mini versions of them they are perfect treat to serve up while watching the Superbowl. A serving of these asian chicken burgers is 360 calories, and will be less if you choose to make sliders instead.

The recipe is adapted from the asian chicken burgers recipe in the Best and Lightest cookbook.

The editors of Food Network magazine have taken their favorite dishes and “lightened them up” without compromising on the taste and given us The Best and Lightest: 150 Healthy Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

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Chinese Chicken Salad

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Chinese Style Chicken Salad | The Novice Housewife

Chinese Style Chicken Salad | The Novice Housewife

I’ve been dying to share this Chinese chicken salad recipe. It has become one of my absolute favorite salads. Its quick to put together and the dressing, made with classic chinese/asian ingredients, gives a burst of flavor to the salad. Even the most hard core salad haters will enjoy it.

This chinese chicken salad is light and packed with veggies. Its a meal that you can have (and make) any night of the week, since its so easy to put together and tastes as good as any chinese take out. Plus, it doesn’t make you feel that guilty eating it. Since you make it at home you know the exact ingredients going into your body.

You can customize the salad to your liking- adding or omitting veggies you like and don’t like.

For a vegetarian version add tofu- you could marinate the tofu and grill it for added flavor.

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Drunken Chicken Banhi Mi & Review of The Banh mi handbook

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Drunken Chicken Banh Mi | The Novice Housewife

I recently got the Banh Mi Handbook by Andrea Nguyen and I love it.

The first time I had the popular Vietnamese sandwich was in Toronto when I was staying there for my cake decorating course.

Most of my stay was with my uncle and his family (and my nani),  but I did spend a few days with my college friend who lived close to downtown Toronto. While staying with her, my friend took me to Banh Mi Boys, a top rated place on yelp and that is when my life was introduced these crazy delicious vietnamese sandwiches.

I had never tried making these sandwiches at home though. Until now.

Homemade banh mi rolls | The Novice Housewife

Andrea Nguyen runs a blog by the name of Viet World Kitchen and has authored a couple of cookbooks on asian cuisine including The Banh Mi Handbook . The cookbook starts with a brief look into Andrea’s long association with the sandwich and then talks about the basic pantry essentials to make your own banh mi. Andrea also includes recipes for homemade sauces and pickled vegetables that make the banh mi so special. And for people who would like to make their own banh mi buns instead of using store bought, Andrea has a very good recipe along with step-by-step pictorial instructions.

There are around 50 recipes in the book. What I love about the cookbook is that it gives a lot of options to customize the banh mi sandwiches to your liking. My husband does not eat any other kind of meat besides chicken (and on certain rare occasions lamb), and is vegetarian on two days of the week, which makes this cookbook a good addition to my collection because of the various chicken and vegetarian filling recipes it has.

Drunken Chicken Banh Mi | The Novice Housewife

Drunken Chicken Banh Mi | The Novice Housewife

Drunken Chicken Banh Mi | The Novice Housewife

Almost all the ingredients in the book are easily available and if not, Andrea offers substitutions. Andrea also offers little notes with each recipe with tips and variations to customize the recipe and create a banh mi that you will love.

While there are many recipes that I would like to try I started with making homemade banh mi rolls. And made the book’s drunken chicken banh mi.

Both V and I loved the drunk chicken banh mi and I am sharing the recipe today. The drunken chicken filling is absolutely delicious. I will be trying the Hanoi grilled chicken banh mi or maybe the coconut curry tofu next.

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