California Turkey Burgers
Hand made turkey burgers with tasty herbs mixed in. Topped with avocado and served on a ciabatta roll.
California Turkey Burgers
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This is an updated post from the Macheesmo Archives.
The first time Betsy and I went mountain biking together was in the mountain biking capital of the world, Grand Junction, Co. I had been once before, but it was Betsy’s inaugural journey.
Turns out that she was a mountain biking natural. She was hoping over boulders and stuff like a pro. Meanwhile, I was stumbling all over the place. I think I’ll make her lead next time so she can’t see me constantly falling on my face!
When we got home, I was anxious to make these California Turkey Burgers. They seemed like the perfect post-bike burger and also I’ve never made turkey burgers on Macheesmo before so I was excited to give them a shot!
California Turkey Burgers
- Serves:
- 4 Burgers
- Prep Time:
- Total Time:
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Hand made turkey burgers with tasty herbs mixed in. Topped with avocado and served on a ciabatta roll.
Ingredients
Instructions
1) Mince onions, parsley, garlic, and pepper. Mix with ground turkey along with salt and pepper.
2) Form 4 patties with turkey mixture.
3) Grill over high heat for 5-6 minutes per side.
4) In the last minute, add cheese to burger and close lid to help melt cheese.
5) Grill buns until lightly charred.
6) Assemble burger with avocado, mayo/mustard, and greens!
Making the Turkey Burgers
Frankly, I find turkey burgers to be a bit bland normally. If I got to a restaurant I’ll almost always order a veggie burger over a turkey burger unless there’s something special about that place’s turkey burgers.
Fortunately, at home, we can do a few things to make the burgers have some good flavor.
Like mix in some herbs and veggies! Now, you could go crazy on the herbs if you wanted. I just went with some fresh parsley, but tons of herbs play well with turkey because it’s kind of a blank slate. So go crazy.
I mixed in some red onion and diced Serrano pepper as well to give it some extra flavor and heat. The key to all of these veggies is to make sure you dice them very small so nobody gets a huge bite of red onion or something in their burger.
Then just toss everything in a bowl together along with a pinch of salt and pepper.
Grilling the Burgers
Once you have your burgers mixed and formed into patties, grill them over high heat for about 4-5 minutes per side.
Once they are almost cooked, add some cheese on top if that’s your thing. I sliced mine this time, but grated cheese will melt faster.
Either way should get the job done though on a hot grill.
The Buns
I spend a lot of time thinking about buns when I’m making burgers. A bun can make or break the whole thing for me. Sometimes I make my own (like these kaiser rolls) if I have enough of a head start.
On this day I was able to find these perfect little ciabatta rolls at the store which would be perfect for these burgers.
I grilled them also of course to get them nice and crunchy.
Any time I describe something as “California” that really just means it has avocado on it.
So yea, once my burgers and buns were grilled, I topped mine off with some avocado, mayo or mustard, and some fresh greens.
Oh. And make these burgers. They are good. And that’s from somebody that doesn’t really like turkey burgers.
14 Responses to “California Turkey Burgers” Leave a comment
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Hello! My name is Nick Evans and I write and manage Macheesmo. I started Macheesmo 11 years ago when I was just learning my way around the kitchen. I love to cook and love everything food-related, but I have no formal training. These days I focus on fast, accessible recipes with the occasional “reach” recipe!
I’ve posted almost 2,000 recipes on Macheesmo. For each one, I do my best to give full explanations of what I did and tips on what I’d do differently next time. I’ll bring up the tricky parts and the easy parts.
I hope you can find something and cook something!
Turkey burgers are great if you add a lot of seasonings. I find that they are a better base than beef burgers since you want to complement the beef and not overpower it. Turkey is much blander and much more versatile if you are trying to do something other than the standard burger.
My favorite way to make them is to take my leftover Thanksgiving stuffing (I make an apple-cranberry-sausage one) and through it in the food processor. Use about 3/4-1 cup of that, one egg, and one pound of turkey to make 4 burgers. Great flavor – like Thanksgiving on a bun.
This is an awesome idea!
A little bit of grated potato mixed in to the ground turkey keeps the burgers from drying out.
Google "mountain biking capital of the world." Colorado's not in the top 10 results.
Oh shit, that's not true. But still.
oh yum!
So question for you:
I don't own a grill nor do I plan to- can you cook a turkey burger in an iron skillet? I usually get super low fat turkey burgers (because I add back all the fat with cheese!) – so would I have to grease the skillet? Do I ever put a lid on the pan??
Sorry to jump in with questions – I just am sort of wondering out loud if iron skillets can get me to the same place as a grill.
You can totally do them in a cast iron skillet. Any burger actually. I would add a very tiny amount of oil to the pan when it's very hot just because the burgers are so lean. The only reason you would need to cover it is to really melt the cheese well at the end.
Good luck!
Last week I was doing my monthly shopping at City Market (Krogers) and picked up examined the contents (they were your same ciabatta buns) and put it into my cart. I found them to be absolutely wonderful!!!!
I love ciabatta breads and would love to get my hands on a recipe that produces that same texture — I want to use it for pizza dough — or bread to pig out on!!~
Burgers are all rage right now, but you don't see me complaining. It's my favorite food. I should have called myself spinach burger! Now that's an idea.
One of my tricks is to put a bit of Greek yogurt into the burger mix. It keeps them moist.
My recent post Recipe for composed salad with lemon-yogurt dressing
Nick – I googled turkey burger and this was the fourth site that came up!! I’m definitely using your recipe rather than Rachel Ray’s. I hope you’re planning your next trip to DC. We can’t wait to host you. :)
Your turkey burgers were a delicious and healthy way to wrap up the day after mountain biking. Thanks for taking the time to share the recipe with us.
Yessss! I LOVE making my own turkey burgers– so much more flavor and freshness than the pre-made ones you can get at the store. And that grilled ciabatta? Swoon.
These sound Delicious! Gonna definitely try them this week. I’m on Weight Watchers so I’m wondering how many points this is – but either way they are gonna be on my menu this week! Thanks for sharing