I bought some organic, ground bison at my local Natural Grocers this week and decided to try a meat I’ve never had before. Well, that isn’t exactly true. I think I had a bison burger on a bun one time in Colorado, maybe 25 years ago, but honestly don’t recall the flavor at all. So I consider my experience with it tonight will be new to my palate.

Wasn’t sure how I wanted to fix this meat, but I knew for certain I wanted to avoid drowning out the flavor of the meat with too many flavor layers. Although I’m not too fond of cheese on burgers, I do like smoked Gouda on just about anything, as my readers well know, and decided that it might just play a role in the final dish. As we all know, a wee bit of onion and bacon never hurt anything, so I decided that would round it out nicely.

The final dish came out delicious! I think now that I definitely LIKE bison, but to be honest, it’s not terribly different from grass-fed ground beef, which I enjoy regularly. Bison brings some impressive nutritional numbers to your plate. Check them out below! This dish is suitable for all phases of Atkins and is also OK for Primal diners that enjoy occasional cheese. But Paleo followers will want to omit the cheese and have a simple bacon bison burger. This recipe would also be nice made from grass-fed beef, lamb or even ground pork. And it goes without saying that grilling the patties over charcoal will take their “smoky” flavor to an even higher level!

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INGREDIENTS:

1 T. ground chia seeds

9 T. water

1 lb. ground bison (I buy at Natural Grocers)

3 oz. red onion, minced very fine

4 tsp. bacon grease

dash each salt and pepper

1/8 tsp. my Homemade Cavender’s Greek Seasoning

5 slices bacon, chopped

6 oz. smoked Gouda, sliced/separated into 4 portions

DIRECTIONS: Grind the chia seeds in a coffee grinder or your blender and place in a lidded jar. Add the water and allow the seeds to gel up for about 5-10 minutes, shaking occasionally. In a medium mixing bowl, place the meat. Add the minced onion, salt, pepper, Cavender’s blend and mix well with a fork or your hands. Add all of the chia gel and mix that in as well, until you achieve uniform dispersal in the meat mixture. Set the bowl of meat aside for a few minutes. In a non-stick skillet, brown the chopped bacon until done. Drain the bacon crumbles on paper towels. Scrap the bacon grease in the skillet into the meat mixture in the bowl and blend well with a fork. Form four 4-oz. meat patties and brown in the same skillet you browned the bacon in. When the meat is done to your liking, if your skillet can’t go into the broiler or oven safely, transfer the meat patties to an oven-safe dish or pan. Top each patty with 1/4 of the smoked Gouda. Pop into the broiler or a hot oven long enough to melt the cheese and finally, top each off with 1/4 of the bacon crumbles. Plate up with your favorite sides and ENJOY! These are very filling with the chia gel and boast some impressive nutritional stats below!

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes four 4-oz. servings of meat, each contains:

397 calories

30 g fat

2.83 g carbs, .88 g fiber, 1.95 g NET CARBS

27.6 g protein

495 mg sodium