Greek Juicy Turkey Burgers. What’s your secret?

We’ve been eating burgers quite often, especially now that I am watching my diet.   That’s why whenever I make some burgers, I make a big batch and freeze them, especially now that it’s summer and we go to the beach, by the time we shower and prepare a salad they are ready and we still eat healthy food.

Before  the Mediterrenean Diet we used to eat more pork and veal, so I used to make them with minced pork or with ground veal.  However, the past year I’ve been experimenting with chicken or turkey to make healthier burgers.  I’ve tried all sorts of tricks to make them juicy and tender, by adding milk, olive oil, white wine or red wine, vinegar,  I even added, yoghurt and pesto in them.

Turkey or chicken breast have no fat to melt when cooking so the meat dries in the end so I also add some olive oil in the meat.   Instead of grilling them I also tried  to cover them with parchment paper and bake them in the oven.  They were not so dry but being covered they did not get much colour.

This time I tried a different approach.  I know that when cooking turkey, beer is added to make the meat tender as I do this quite often when cooking turkey,  so this gave me the idea to try adding beer.

I’ve also adjusted the seasing in the burgers by also adding chicken seasoning and tarragon as well which match better with poultry.

I think that these are by far the best turkey burgers I’ve made until now as although they were baked in the oven uncovered, they were still juicy and delicious.

What’s your secret for keeping burgers juicy?  I’d love to hear some new techniques.

Greek Turkey Burgers with Beer, Recipe by Ivy

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: about 20 minutes

Makes: 15 burgers (200 grams each)

Ingredients:

• 150 grams bread without the crust, soaked in beer
• 1 can (0,33 l) beer
• 2 kilos ground turkey
• 2 medium onions, grated
• 1 clove of garlic (optional)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 2 eggs
• salt, pepper
• ½ cup parsley, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• ½ tsp tarragon
• ½ tsp chicken seasoning carino
• ½ tsp thyme
• 1/3 cup dried bread crumbs

Directions:

Remove the crust from the bread and put it in a bowl with all the beer.  When it has soaked take a fork and mix.

Mince onion and garlic in a food processor together with the olive oil.

Put the minced meat, the bread together with all the beer in a large bowl.  Add all the other ingredients and mix well.

Form burgers into 2 cm. thick patties.

You can grill or broil them for 4 – 5 minutes on each side but as my grill does not work any more I cook them in the oven. I place them on parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven to 180 degrees C for about 25 – 30 minutes, turning them once.

Tip:  For the remaining burgers, shape them, wrap each one separately in cling film and store in the deep freezer.

These burgers go to Reeni, of Cinnamon  Spice & Everything Nice, for her event Burger Club Free for all.

Kopiaste and Kali Orexi!!