What to serve with your burger? Asparagus fries of course!

The ultimate question asked across restaurants, home kitchens and BBQ alike, what would you like with your burger?
Well, we all WANT chips or fries....especially Five Guys Burgers and Fries' fries. BUT what should eat is totally different.

Now, I love salads.  I have blogged about them often (Apple and Feta Salad and Zalads at Zaxby's), but I like something crunchy with my burgers. Maybe a little less, healthy....but not as bad for me as my beloved french fries. Kinda like how I made guacamole for my burger sauce instead of using mayo.  And yes- I was weak and added quite a bit of bacon.  But that is why I needed a nice healthy side.

So, I have been experimenting with different things like pairing it with a soup  or a baked potato.  But it is not quite right.  I always end up wanting fries or chips.  Then I found this amazing recipe on Spoon Fork Bacon Blog to make Asparagus fries.  And I thought why not, I always enjoy the fried green beans at TGI Friday's. Plus asparagus is a negative calorie food which means extra low in calories (click here to get the 411 on negative calorie foods).
Sooooo

This recipe ROCKS!!!!!!

The asparagus fries have a nice crunch.

No one even wanted a dipping sauce.  It was insane

Yes- my super picky mother-in-law ate them too!

What you need

I made this with 3 lbs of asparagus but you could scale this back to 1 pound

1 1/2 cups of sliced almonds

1 1/2 cups of panko

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp of onion powder

1/2 tsp of Cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

A larger container of cooking spray.

A blender

a bowl

a cook sheet covered in aluminium foil

What I did

1. Wash the asparagus- What?  you never know what germs your veggies pick up on their journey.
2. Cut or break off the white stems from the asparagus. I choose to leave my asparagus nice and long but you can cut the spears smaller so you have more to serve.
3. Place the sliced almond in a food processor or blender and puree until meal like.
4. Mix the almond meal with the panko, garlic, onion and cayenne pepper.
5. Completely coat a spear of asparagus then dredge through the alomd/panko mixture. When done, place on cooking sheet.  Then repeat process untill all asparagus is done.
6. sprinkle the extra almond/panko mixture over top the asparagus
7. Place in the over to bake for 15-20 minutes.  If the fries are not crispy, broil for 3 minutes.

TIPS

• Use panko- I know it is easy if you have breadcrumbs on hand but the crunch isn't as good.  Trust me.
• You could use an egg wash instead of the cooking spray.
• You can serve this dish as an appetizer- just add blue cheese dressing or ranch on the side for dipping.