Salmon Burgers

I'm obsessed with these salmon burgers. Salmon's obviously really great for you. I don't think I've ever read a fitness magazine that didn't mention salmon (and I read that crap a lot). I really like salmon, everyone else seems to, too. But I feel like I do the same thing with it- pan sear it or bake it in the oven, with a green vegetable. It kind of bores the hell out of me. I've done a recipe where you wrap the salmon fillet in rice paper and fry it, I did one where it's poached in a tarragon cream sauce... and like most fish it kind of needs to be fresh to be good. I like the idea of salmon burgers a lot and I was thrilled to find that they can be frozen and thawed without really compromising the quality of the fish.

So these are a pretty awesome weeknight dinner- you can pull some frozen burgers out of the freezer, thaw them quickly, and pan-sear them and they're so, so tasty. I got a big side of salmon at BJ's yesterday (just over 2 lbs) and made salmon burgers today. They're all individually wrapped in my freezer waiting to be devoured later in the week.

2 lbs salmon
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 cups mayonnaise
4 cloves garlic
1/2- 2/3 cups chopped chives
1/4 cup mustard
2 Tbs lemon juice
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne

I chopped the salmon the a food processor, in 3 batches, 5-8 pulses per batch. I wouldn't do it all at once- part of it would get destroyed while the top bits stayed in big chunks. Mixed the mayonnaise with the garlic (grated on the microplane) and the rest of the ingredients. It seems like a ton of mayonnaise- it is. You won't need it all. I combined the chopped up salmon, breadcrumbs, and a scant 1 cup of the mayonnaise mixture and chilled it. I made what turned out to be 20 slider-sized burgers. I lined them up on cutting boards (baking sheets work too) and froze them. I pulled them out and individually wrapped them in plastic and put the in bags. (The burgers are a little sticky. Trying to wrap them in plastic before freezing just gets gross.)

So, now you have 20 frozen salmon sliders and lots of chive mayonnaise to use as a condiment. (The mayonnaise is good on a lot of stuff so having more than you need is nice.) Since I couldn't find slider rolls, I got whole wheat dinner rolls and sliced them and froze them. My freezer's pretty full right now, not gonna lie. Especially since the back is full of frozen chicken I'm not eating right now. Also! one dinner roll makes just about 1 cup of breadcrumbs. So that worked out nicely.

To cook- thaw and pan-cook in a little oil, 4-5 minutes per side. One mini burger is about 140 calories. 2 cooked burgers on toasted rolls with 1 Tbs of mayo on each is about 750 calories. They're kind of decadent. And awesome.