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Turkey Burgers

Turkey burger with havarti cheese and pickled onions

July 21, 2022

This recipe will take about 25 minutes to prep and has a difficulty rating of advanced. Turkey burgers are a good option for anyone looking to cut back their intake of red meat. Chicken/turkey production creates less CO2 and switching out for beef can help lower climate impact.

Ingredient list

  • Red wine vinegar 
  • Brown sugar 
  • Salt 
  • Small red onion, thinly sliced 
  • Lean ground turkey - Can swap out turkey for any lean protein including ground chicken or bison.
  • Fresh breadcrumbs 
  • Egg 
  • Milk 
  • Chopped fresh cilantro 
  • Ground cumin 
  • Salt 
  • Ground pepper 
  • Havarti cheese 
  • Frisée lettuce 
  • Whole wheat hamburger bun 
  • Reduced fat mayonnaise (optional)

Directions

Pickled onions

  1. Whisk together vinegar, brown sugar and salt in a medium bowl.
  2. Cover and microwave on high for 3 minutes until it boils. Add onions and toss to coat.
  3. Let stand for 30 minutes or up to 3 days for a more concentrated flavor.

Turkey burgers

  1. Preheat grill to medium-high; grease well.
  2. In a bowl gently combine ground turkey, breadcrumbs, eggs, milk, cilantro, cumin, salt and pepper.
  3. Shape into 4 patties.
  4. Cook on grill for 4-6 minutes or until no longer pink on the inside.
  5. Top with ½ slice of cheese and grill for 2 minutes. If desired, arrange buns cut side down on the grill to toast.
  6. Top bottom bun with a thin layer of mayonnaise, Frisée lettuce and the turkey patty. Top with picked onions. Cap with remaining bun and serve immediately.

Add sliced avocado as a side or choose a side salad with full fat dressing to include more healthy non-saturated fats in this meal.

Add fresh herbs to mix for extra flavor and moisture. You may also include additional fresh vegetables on the side or on top of your burger for extra flavor. Both will also help increase intake of fresh vegetables.

Make the recipe with us!

Our chef demonstrates how to prepare this recipe.

Today, we will be making turkey burgers with pickled onions. We're going to start off with a little bit of vinegar, little salt and some brown sugar. We're going to take that over to the range and we're going to sauté up these onions to pickle them. So we're going to start off by sautéing our vinegar, our salt, and our brown sugar together for about three to four minutes until we get a nice little boil going. Then we're going to add in our onions, let that sauté for a little bit. Once those get nice, mixed in there, we're going to let them sit for about 30 minutes. You can also let them sit for about up to 3 days for a little bit more flavorful punch. Now that we have our onions going, we're going to start working on the actual turkey patties themselves. So we take about a pound of ground turkey. You can also substitute bison or ground chicken as well for another lean protein.

We're going to take our ground turkey here, mix in with a little bit of bread crumbs, some salt and pepper. We add a little bit of a diced cilantro for a little extra flavor there. You can also use some other vegetables and seasonings as well. Anything you'd like to try, maybe some garlic powder, onion power, something that won't increase the sodium. One egg right in there and a little bit of milk. We're going to make our patties. We will get that all nice and mixed in together, really, really well. Once you have that all mixed in you're going to form patties. You should be able to get about four patties out of here. Form that right onto your plate and then we move on to the next step of the cooking process. So you want to heat your skillet up to about medium heat. Add a little bit of oil.

You can also cook this out on the grill for that great summer barbecue flavor. Put your patty right on here and we're cooking. And we'll want to cook that for about four or five minutes on each side until no longer pink in the center and then we'll add our cheese. Today we're using Havarti cheese for a little extra added flavor. We'll put that on for the last couple of minutes. Let it melt on there real nice. I happen to love a little bit of Havarti cheese so we're going to go a little extra on this guy. Let that melt till perfection. All right and now that we've got that cheese melted on there really nice we're going to set that right on a whole wheat bun with a little bit of Friese lettuce.

I like mine with a little bit of avocado. You also use a little bit of light mayo as well to top that off. We add our pickled onions. We have ourselves a delicious summer recipe that you can make inside or outside depending on how hot it is. And here we have our delicious turkey burger. Great summer recipe with some pickled onions, Havarti cheese, Frisée lettuce, and a little bit of avocado on the side on a whole wheat bun. Enjoy.

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