Nando’s Portuguese Chicken Burgers

Summer is in full swing, and there’s something I need to make: a good burger. It’s practically a requirement for this time of year! Now, I’m all about the ground beef patty, but I just couldn’t pass up this spicy chicken burger recipe. Although I’ve never heard of Nando’s, I do love anything that’s hot and spicy. This recipe for Nando’s Portuguese Chicken Burgers sounds hot, spicy, and incredibly delicious. And you know I have to make the baked potato wedges to go with it! What’s a burger without fries?

I don’t think Nando’s is huge in America yet, but let me tell you, it has a cult following in Australia. I really mean it when I say this is probably my most requested recipe. If you’ve never tried Nando’s before, you are in for a treat if you try this. The marinade is incredible!

The Ingredients

At 20 items (not including the potato wedges), this recipe’s ingredients list is on the long side. Fortunately, I had a few of them in my pantry, like the malt vinegar, cooking oils, and spices. That left me to buy the rolls, yogurt, meat, and produce, which wasn’t so bad.

I found everything I needed at my usual grocery store except for the bird’s eye chili peppers. The recipe’s notes list Thai chilis as a substitute, but I couldn’t find them either. I ended up using the other substitute listed in the notes: cayenne pepper. I always have cayenne around!

The Process

These Portuguese chicken burgers might have a lot of ingredients, but they were pretty quick and easy to make. Here’s how my time was spent:

• 9 minute to prep
• 15 minutes to cook
• 24 minutes total

The chicken needs to be marinated for 3-24 hours, so I got this recipe started the day before I planned to serve it. In less than 10 minutes, I had the peri peri marinade mixed up, the chicken thighs marinating, and the pink sauce made.

And although I had some red food coloring on hand, I decided not to add it to the sauce. It was naturally reddish-brown from the paprika, cayenne, and red bell pepper, so I let it be. That meant the pink sauce ended up more of a peachy color, but I’m okay with that.

The next day, I started things off with the Easy Potato Wedges. They were prepped and ready to cook in 10 minutes,  just as the recipe listed. And 40 minutes after they went into the oven, I had crispy outside, soft inside baked potato wedges on my plate.

But back to the burgers! They were even easier to make. I just removed the chicken from the marinade and cooked it up on the stove in a cast-iron pan. Five minutes on the first side and four minutes on the flip side was just the right amount of time.

While the chicken fried, I prepared the rolls with lettuce and tomato slices. All I had to do was add the cooked chicken with some pink sauce, and my copycat Nando’s Portuguese Chicken Burgers were ready to eat.