Grinding chicken, Use skin?

[LawnGnome]

Well, I am thinking of buying a whole chicken to make some ground chicken, mostly for burgers. I was wondering though what your thoughts were on using the skin, or if I should only just the meat. There is a lot of flavour in the skin, but I am concerned it may alter the texture in an undesirable way.

So any advice?

[chef chicklet]

The skin would only have flavor once its cooked. Also the skin has a lot of stretchy conective tissue and I'd bet that would come through in the mix. I'd take the chicken fat, melt it, strain it, and then chill it, add that later to the chicken meat grind later as my fat for flavor.

[Woodfireguy]

Try grinding skinless chicken thighs only. Just the right amount of fat for burgers and sausage. We made these chicken breakfast sausages that way

[BombayUpWithaTwist]

Yum!

[scubadoo97]

Last time I made chicken sausage I used skin. If it's really cold it will not jam up the grinder and does add fat and flavor without any weird texture problems.

[eight_inch_pestle]

Instead of grinding you might make (well-seasoned) crispy cracklings and work both the cracklings and their rendered fat into the patties. Or just save the cracklings for salads or munching out of hand.

[pb n foie]

don't grind the skin. if you want to add fat then get some pork fatback and grind that. use the skin for skin chips! or save all of the skin that you accumulate and mail it to me. I love chicken skin!

[BombayUpWithaTwist]

I don't think I'd put the skin in, but I would use both dark and light meat. I don't put the skin in because I think it may jam the grinder.