Chicken Liver Pate: Easy and Organic Super-food
You may already know about the modern re-discovery of organs as super-foods. Many humans throughout history have prized organ meats, and known that without them their communities would suffer from a variety of deficiencies. Chicken liver pate is a delicious, flavorful spread that can be added to toast…crackers…you name it! If you aren’t accustomed to the flavors of organ meats, this organic liver pate is a great way to start including organs in your diet.
Organs as Delicacies
Liver, among other organ meats, was fed even to young children and babies historically. We may think of these foods as distasteful because of the strong flavors that we aren’t used to. Maybe it comes as a surprise to you: they were formerly known as a delicacies!
When liver is mentioned around my grandma who was born in the 1930s, she licks her lips and says “Oh, I LOVE liver!” She grew up eating liver, so to her it is delicious!
Chicken Liver Pate Nutrition
While beef liver the well known nutrient-dense type of liver to consume, chicken liver is comparable in many aspects (if from a good source) and has a more mild flavor. This makes chicken liver pate a great recipe to start with for those who aren’t used to eating liver.
According to US Wellness Meats, chicken liver contains high levels of Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, Riboflavin, Folate, Pantothenic Acid, Niacin, and Vitamin B to name a few! It’s also a great source of iron, zinc, copper, manganese and selenium.
Nose-to-Tail Eating
Eating organs is an important part of what is known as “nose-to-tail” eating, meaning eating all of the edible parts of the animal we are consuming.
I try to include organs in my meals about twice a week, as well as taking desiccated organ supplements. I don’t think we should consume too much, though. Organs are very nutritionally dense, and we don’t need an enormous amount to gain an array of benefits. When an animal would be consumed by a healthy hunter-gatherer society, generally the organs would be shared among the people along with the muscle meats and other parts. So I try to imagine those proportions when deciding how much organ product to consume on a weekly basis.
Sourcing Your Birds for Chicken Liver Pate
I made this chicken liver pate recipe with the organs of our chickens that we recently butchered. They eat a soy free diet and are rotated on pasture, where they can eat bugs and plants. I actually want to experiment raising more wild game and older breeds of chickens who are better at foraging for bugs and surviving in the wild. I think this would make much more healthy meat and organs with a much lower consumption of grain-based feed!
That being said, make sure the chicken liver you buy is pasture raised and organic. You don’t want to eat birds who have been living inside with minimal-to-no sunlight, and nothing to eat but soy-based feed all day!
I like to enjoy my chicken liver pate spread onto sourdough einkorn crackers, sourdough einkorn toast, or even spread it onto a sourdough einkorn flatbread. As this recipe is basically a flavorful buttery spread, there are so many things you could add it to! Comment below with your favorite way to serve and enjoy chicken liver pate!
Now let’s make Chicken Liver Pate!
*This is not medical advice and is not intended as a substitute for care of a licensed health care provider.
Chicken Liver Pate: Easy and Organic Super-food
Equipment
- 1 nontoxic wooden cutting board
- 1 knife
- 1 stainless steal or cast iron skillet
- 1 wooden spoon or other non-plastic cooking utensil
- 1 high quality blender
- 1 metal mesh sieve
- 1 large ceramic, glass or metal bowl
- 1 silicone spatula
- 1 glass storage container with lid
- 1 small glass or ceramic bowl
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb pasture raised, organic, soy free chicken livers, cleaned
- 1 medium organic onion, chopped
- 1 organic clove garlic, minced
- 3 sprigs fresh organic thyme, leaves removed from stem
- 6 fresh organic sage leaves, chopped
- 1 stick organic pasture raised butter, at room temperature (or 1/2 cup raw homemade butter!)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh organic ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon organic ground cinnamon
- 1 splash organic rum *optional
Instructions
- Add chopped sage leaves, thyme leaves, salt, pepper, and cinnamon to a small bowl
- Add 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) of butter to skillet and preheat to medium-low
- Once butter is beginning to bubble, add chopped onions and sauté until turning translucent softened
- Add minced garlic and stir until fragrant
- Add chicken livers to pan, spacing out so they cook evenly
- Flip chicken livers once brown on first side, and brown on the opposite side
- Continue to cook, stirring and chopping up liver into smaller pieces with stirring utensil. Cook until brown all the way through
- Add spice and herb mixture to skillet and stir until fragrant
- Pour splash of rum (if using) into skillet and quickly light on fire, allowing alcohol to burn off
- Remove from heat and pour liver mixture into a bowl. Allow to cool to room temperature
- Once room temperature, add ingredients to blender along with the rest of the stick (1/4 cup) of room temperature butter. Blend until smooth.
- Transfer blended liver mixture from blender to metal mesh sieve placed over bowl
- Press through metal mesh sieve with silicone spatula, by spreading around and firmly pressing.
- Add the pressed, smooth liver pate that made it through the mesh to glass storage container
- Cover and place in refrigerator to cool for at least 2 hours
- Serve on crackers, toast, or any way you like – enjoy!
I can’t wait to try this recipe!
About how long will this last in the fridge, and do you know if it would be ok to freeze it?
Hi Kayla!
It tasted fresh keeping in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Freezing it doesn’t seem to affect the taste or texture much for me!