Turkey burgers with Goat Cheese Spread...

I could see us making tonight's dinner, Grilled Turkey Burgers with Goat Cheese Spread, quite a few times throughout the summer for different cookouts or picnics! I know some may not like turkey burgers all that much as they can tend to dry out, but this recipe may change your mind. Let's jump right in and see why you should give them a try!

I've told you before about how we like to grind our own chicken (and often beef) using the food processor and we did the same here with the turkey so we could control what goes in it. While you could certainly use extra-lean ground turkey (which is simply ground turkey breast) in this recipe and most likely end up fine, you may want to cut that with an equal amount of regular lean ground turkey to impart a bit more moisture and depth.

To man-handle plenty of zip into these burgers, we mixed into the meat minced garlic, lemon zest, lots of (thawed from it's frozen state) spinach and an egg white to help hold everything together, along with the obligatory pinches of salt and fresh ground black pepper. Keep in mind that you want to work with this as little as possible to keep the burgers light, but don't drive yourself crazy - just get the ingredients distributed (especially the spinach) as evenly as you can. Formed into four hefty patties, we set them on the grill and left them be while I got working on the tangy spread.

To give the spread some staying power, we used luscious Greek yogurt as the base, then stirred in crumbled goat cheese, parsley, fresh oregano and to keep your tongue entertained, a bit of fresh mint. Assembled by anointing each toasted English muffin with the spread (that is just what we used, any type of bun is fine), we added a leaf of crisp romaine onto the bottom of each muffin, followed by the cooked burgers and a ring or two of zesty red onion. Raw red onion can be a little much for Jeff, so I often soak his pieces in icy water to mellow them out.

Using the duo of dark and light meat did give them an advantage to stay juicy, but the real secret was adding that spinach into the mix, which ended up being an ingenious way to keep these burgers moist. We don't usually put a sauce on our burgers, but we may have to start rethinking that as this one definitely tempted our taste buds! We made this into four portions, but you could certainly stretch this out to make 6 servings and still have it be plenty filling - just note that you may only have enough of the delicious spread to coat one side of each English muffin (or bun if you so choose).

Recipes
Grilled Turkey Burgers with Goat Cheese Spread