Garden Turkey Burgers So Good You Won’t Miss the Beef

We all know that turkey burgers are healthy and have less fat than regular burgers.

We all also know that the flavor is somewhat, shall we say …

LACKING?

Not so with these turkey burgers.  We made these a few weeks back when we had a “BYOM” (bring your own meat) cookout at one of our son’s house.  The boys wanted steak, but once they got a gander at these burgers we made, they all wanted one, or at least a bite of one.

Incidentally, this is a great way to sneak some veggies into your diet as well.  There are four vegetables inside the burger patty and 3 more on top of it!  And the flavor is wonderful.

Start by recruiting your favorite veggie chopper to finely chop up some veggies.

Seriously, that is one cute chopper!

Finely chop up one poblano pepper, one red pepper and 1/2 of a yellow onion. Also, grate some carrots, or just chop up the matchstick ones like we did. Again chop them finely.

Make the pieces very fine for this burger.  You don’t want giant chunks of pepper in your mouth, just little morsels.

We used about 1/4 cup of each of these for one pound of meat and we made four 1/4 pound patties and got  nice sized burgers out of this because turkey meat doesn’t burn off as much fat, so you’re left with mostly what you start with.

Now get your one pound of turkey.  We use this.

It still has a bit of fat in it so it’s not completely dried out and it holds up well on the grill, but we’ll still need to add some binders in to help with that.

Add in one cup of oatmeal.  I used quick cooking oats.

Beat up one egg.

If you’re really watching calories, you could remove the yolks of two eggs and just use the whites.  Add the egg into the mixing bowl with your one pound of turkey meat.

Dump in your chopped veggies.

Sprinkle in a teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper.

Then get dirty and yukky and dig both of your hands in and mix this all up really well.

Form four equal-size patties and place them on a platter lined with wax paper.

Just look at the little flecks of flavor!

Now, take them out to your grill.  Grill these over medium-low heat and make sure you lightly spray or oil your grill first to help keep them from sticking.  You can do this by dipping a folded paper towel in vegetable oil and using tongs, rub it over the grill after you’ve turned it on and cleaned it with your grill brush.

Don’t flip them too soon either.  Grill them for about 4-5 minutes on one side, and then a nice crust should have formed and they should flip easily.  Use a large spatula as well (not tongs) to prevent breakage of the burgers.

When your burgers are almost done, add one slice of pepper-jack cheese to each or your favorite fat-free cheese, if counting fat or calories.

Then bring them in and assemble your garden burgers.

We used two kinds of buns, regular whole wheat burger buns and Earthgrain thin buns.  These are nice if you’re trying to cut back on carbs.

Thinly slice up one avocado.

Layer on four slices.

Add on some alfalfa sprouts.

Layer on some jucy ripe tomatoes and slather a bit of light or fat-free mayo on the top bun.

Ohhh these burgers…

When you bite into one, you get the creamy mayo and avocado with the freshness of the tomato and sprouts and then you get the burger patty itself with a tad bit of heat from the poblano pepper and flavor from those other veggies.

Well, let me just show you.

Isn’t that just the prettiesy, healthiest burger you’ve ever seen?

But don’t worry about bland boring healthy flavor, because it tastes great too!

These will be a weekly staple meal at our house from now on.

They’re absolutely spectacular.

And they fit nicely into the veggie part of the food pyramid too.

Katie’s Printable Recipe- Garden Turkey Burgers

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Want to watch us make these burgers on my cooking segment?  You can click Play below.

 

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