It’s hump day, and if you are looking for a light, yet flavorful burger to throw on the grill, this recipe is for you! My family loves these burgers – they are so fresh, light and inexpensive to make! I generally have these on the menu around the time I decide to stock up on a major ground turkey sale at our local grocery store. I am able to get 2 – 1lb packs of ground turkey for $2.50, I mean what—that is just a steal! So needless to say I like to take advantage of that sale and have the meat available for these or even as a ground beef substitute in recipes.

The recipe and prep are pretty straight forward. You will need to allow these burgers to set in the fridge for about an hour. Note: I have been in a rush and unable to get them in the fridge for that amount of time, and the burgers turned out fine. They were a little harder to flip on the grill (pieces started to break off), but it wasn’t too bad!

These burgers are so TASTY—especially when served on a nice fluffy brioche bun or even a fresh bakery made bun. We served these with a side of baked beans (my daughter saw a Bush’s baked beans commercial in the afternoon and asked if we could have them, easy enough!) and cooked frozen petite broccoli florets (which the kids love!). Totally random sides, but it was super yummy!

Alternatively, you could serve these up with a nice romaine salad, kalamata olives, tomatoes, feta cheese topped with greek dressing and a parmesan flavored risotto to really make this dish pop with sophisticated flavor!

Okay, enough chatter—lets get started!

ONE THING TO NOTE: add a tiny bit of breadcrumbs to your burger mixture. It will help keep the turkey burger mixture bound and not fall apart on the grill, which is never fun!

1 lb of ground turkey
5 oz fresh baby spinach leaves (4 oz chopped for burger mixture; 1 oz saved to top burgers)
3 oz crumbled feta cheese (save 1 oz to top burgers)
1/3 cup sun-dried tomato pesto – you could chop up sun-dried tomatoes, I find the consistency of the pesto was better
¼ cup of plain breadcrumbs
1 egg
1-2 cloves of garlic
½ tsp of salt
¼ tsp of pepper
½ tsp of garlic salt
Quarter to roughly half of a red onion, finely chopped (will also chop up some thin slices to top the burgers with later)

Combine ingredients in a medium sized bowl saving some spinach leaves, feta cheese and sliced red onion to serve on top of the burgers once cooked.

Form into 5 patties and let chill in the refrigerator for an hour

Set the grill to medium-high heat

Cook on each side for 4 minutes then rotate 90 degrees and cook another 3-4 minutes (this will give you nice crisscross grill marks, then flip and do the same thing on the other side.

Serve on a brioche or hamburger bun and top with the spinach leaves, feta crumbles and red onion slices – you can even spread some sun-dried tomato pesto on the bun for added flavor!