bold turkey burgers!

A few weeks ago Travis and I bought ground turkey meat at Costco, so when we were going to have some friends over for dinner I decided to bust it out and make turkey burgers!

Wait...I have never made turkey burgers before...shoot.

*Pick up phone the day of the dinner party and frantically call dad - the amazing, creative cook!*

He gave me some really good hints at making the actual patties from scratch. These patties are loaded with veggies (with the potential for a lot more veggies and other ingredients), easy to make, and topped with some fun stuff!

I call this recipe, Bold Turkey Burgers:

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs ground turkey (makes 8 patties)

Sara Lee whole grain buns

1/2 super fine diced onion

1/2 super fine diced red pepper

1 cup breadcrumbs (bought or homemade - I made mine because I wanted them a little bigger/softer)

dried chives

seasoning to smell (don't taste the raw mix - I remembered how gross that would be as I was about to put some in my mouth...)

1 BIG red onion

1 BIG tomato

1 head of lettuce

pepper jack cheese

store bought guacamole

peas

feta cheese

ketchup, mustard, fry sauce, Asian Zing Sauce from BWW, or whatever you want! (Go wild..)

Directions:

1. let turkey meat sit out for hours until it is defrosted but still cold, or put in the microwave and defrost until it is still cold and soft to the touch

2. make breadcrumbs (if you don't want to buy them) - let a few slices of bread (I used 2) sit out for a while and then lightly toast them, rip apart/crumble the slices until you have tiny chunks.

3. chop the 1/2 onion and 1/2 red pepper - super fine!

4. mix it all together (isn't touching raw meat fun?)

5. season it until it smells good! (don't taste...)

6. make patties on a cookie sheet with parchment paper on it. I used the buns to measure how big the patties should be, and Sara Lee's buns (hehe) are pretty big, so if you have small buns (hehe) you'll get more patties. You get the idea. Put those suckers back in the fridge - you're not done yet!

7. Let's make some guacamole!! At pretty much any store you can buy pre-made guac (avocados are expensive and not always in season and are often mushy). This stuff is expensive though and you don't even get that much for your $4, so here is a way to make your money go a lot father and amp up the nutritional value! Use one part guacamole and one part peas (one cup to one cup, two cups to two cups, and so on). That's right - peas. (Peas are really cheap and it comes in a huge bag so using 1 cup at a time will last foreverrrr). Mash those peas up using the back of a spoon until they're all popped and gushy (you can even puree them if you want to smooth out the texture). Mix the guacamole, peas, and some crumbly feta cheese (and seasoning - garlic salt/powder, chile powder, roasted red pepper flakes, jalapeno seasoning, whatever!). You'll never go back to plain old mashed up avocados again!

8. Slice your red onion and tomato. When slicing the red onion, it's really awesome if you just keep it in whole slices instead of separating the rings. If you LOVE red onion like I do, try this. You'll never go back to a few measly rings. Arrange your red onion and tomato slices all pretty on a plate or platter.

9. Peel off some pieces of lettuce and arrange them all pretty next to the tomatoes.

10. Get out your pepper jack cheese (or whatever cheese you want) and...you guessed it! Arrange it all pretty, too.

11. Grill those patties on the George Foreman!

Even though these things can be a pain to clean, they're easy-peasy to grill with! They're also handy to warm up your buns (hehe):

Assemble your burger and don’t be shy – load all your ingredients up! This turkey burger is loaded with veggies and low on fat. Want some more/different veggies? Try shredded cucumber, corn, or even spinach! Go hog wild. With the tomato, red onion, and lettuce, and peas in the guacamole – this may be one of the healthiest burgers you’ve ever had! This recipe would be even greater if it were coupled with sweet potato french fries, sprinkled with chili powder and some kind of tangy dipping sauce (maybe something with coconut? I'll figure that out someday..)

Here are some pictures from the Sunday-less-“all-pretty”-arranged-dinner:

BWW’s Asian Zing Sauce on the burger was amazing – it echoed the sweet/spicy/tangy-ness that is going on all over this turkey burger!

I toasted my bun, which made it extra awesome!

Everything arranged kind of “all pretty.”

Stack it up – when I made this on Thursday I put the guacamole on the top bun and the Asian Zing sauce right on the patty but by Sunday the guacamole had gone kind of bad (I made it on Tuesday) so that sucked.

Top got a little done but I barely noticed once I bit through all that deliciousness!

This is a pretty exotic burger, but if you love bold, contrasting flavors and food with bright colors that is healthy but still yummy, this recipe is for you!!