How To Make Baked Turkey Burgers: Tips for Seasoning and Serving

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Turkey burgers can have the reputation of being dry and bland. But that will never be the case with these baked turkey burgers. Even without the oil, they're packed with flavor thanks to soy sauce, garlic, green onion, and shallot. We skip the bread crumbs (which can lead to dryness!), so it's helpful to wet your hands to form the patties. Once they're on the sheet tray, you can continue to shape into a more perfect patty if you want. The thickness of your patties will determine how quickly they cook, so if you go wider than a 3" patty keep an eye on them to make sure they don't overcook!

Check out our recipe for Turkey Burgers:

INGREDIENTS FOR TURKEY BURGERS

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1 lb. ground turkey

1 large egg, beaten

1 tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce

1/2 small shallot, minced

2 green onions, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. ground mustardKosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Pinch crushed red pepper flakes

FOR SERVING

Hamburger buns

Spicy mayonnaise

Butterhead lettuce

Red onion, thinly sliced

Avocado, sliced

HOW TO SEASON

For the turkey burgers, I wanted to allow the toppings and the fiesta mayo to season the burgers in a BIG way.

So for seasoning, we kept it simple and just used salt and pepper!

If you’re using plain ground turkey, we feel that adding salt and pepper is a MUST. Some other additional seasonings we recommend for turkey burgers are:

Garlic powder

Garlic pepper

A mixture of basil, oregano, parsley

Onion powder

Cumin

Red pepper flakes.

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Making Your Own Patties: If you’re making your own turkey patties, you can add the seasoning right into the ground turkey before making your patties, but we find that waiting until after we patty them out, we can taste the flavors a LOT more. But whichever way you prefer to season them is just fine! Photo Hintofhealthy Pre-Pattied Burgers: We love the turkey burgers (and any burgers really) that come with paper liners, because it makes separating the patties for easy seasoning and less mess.

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine ground turkey and remaining ingredients. Season with salt, pepper, and pinch of red pepper flakes and mix until just combined. Form into 4 patties about 3” wide and place on prepared baking sheet. Mixture may be wet and it’s helpful to wet your hands to form into a patty. Once on the baking sheet, you can flatten the patty more.
2. Bake for 15 minutes until cooked through and internal temperature reaches 165°.
3. Serve on buns with desired toppings.

**READ MORE: What are the best healthy hangover foods?

TOP TIPS

Only mix the ingredients until just combined. Don't over mix the meat, or it will dry out.

If you use low quality turkey meat, the burgers could express a lot of water during cooking. In this case, I recommend placing the burgers on a roasting rack with a drip tray underneath.

The exact cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of your burgers. Use a meat thermometer to ensure that your burgers are cooked to perfection.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS

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Turkey burgers are best served as an entree for lunch or dinner. The burger patties can be served in burger buns or lettuce wraps, topped with vegetables and any of your favorite toppings.

VARIATIONS ON TURKEY BURGERS

Burger seasoning: To experiment with the flavor of your turkey patties, you can mix some seasonings and spices in with the ground turkey. Garlic powder or minced cloves garlic, ground cumin, fresh cilantro, or fresh parsely would all taste great.

Toppings: Any of your favorite burger toppings will also be great on a Turkey Burger. Try adding crispy bacon, avocado, mushroom, or coleslaw.

Sauces: You can also spread lots of sauces over the hamburger bun. BBQ sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, ketchup, or even hot sauce would all be amazing.

Onion: There’s already raw onion in the recipe, however you can switch that out for grilled or caramelized onion for a little extra smoky flavor.

Cheese: Instead of cheddar cheese, you can use American, Swiss, provolone, Pepper Jack, muenster, or any other of your favorite cheese varieties.

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Buns: Although regular hamburger buns are great, you could also use brioche, pretzel buns, or simple sliced bread. Using regular bread will make the recipe more similar to a Patty Melt. Any of the buns can be toasted on the grill like in the recipe, or you could toast them in the oven or on the stovetop like we do in our Stovetop and Oven-Baked Burger recipes. Oven and stovetop burgers are great when you want to enjoy a burger during the colder months.

LEFTOVERS

Store leftover baked turkey burgers in a sealed container in a refrigerator for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 6 months. You can cook the frozen burgers the same way that you would cook any frozen store bought burgers; in the oven, pan, air fryer or on a grill.

We love to prepare a batch of patties, and serve them for multiple meals, like dinner one day, and lunch the next day. You can easily double the recipe, and make even more burgers at the same time.

Can you cook ground turkey in the oven? Absolutely. You can cook ground turkey in the oven the same way as you would cook beef. Shape the meat into meatballs or burgers, or add it to casseroles or other dishes. Can turkey be pink? Generally speaking, turkey meat is white when it's cooked. The exception is if you're using smoked turkey, which stays red or pink. Photo fantabulosity How do you know when turkey is done without a thermometer? The safest way is always to use a meat thermometer. However, you can also use into the meat. The juices should run clear, and the meat should be white. Is it better to cook burgers in the oven or on the stove? Some would argue that pan seared burgers taste better, but I find that baked burgers are just as good. Baking them in the oven is also much easier, it allows you to cook multiple burgers at the same time, and there's a lot less to clean up.

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