Recipe Notes: Turkey Burgers

29 March 2020

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, January 2020

Using ground turkey in place of ground beef does not tempt me often. However, I have used ground turkey for both sloppy Joes and for meat loaf and both of these turned out to be quite good. So when a recipe for turkey burgers appeared in Cook's Illustrated recently, encouraged by my previous experiences with ground turkey, I was eager to give it a try.

Ground turkey is not ground beef and this leads too some interesting differences in how you use it to make burgers. First, the meat is augmented with several ingredients before being shaped into patties: baking soda, soy sauce, butter, panko bread crumbs, gelatin, and grated Parmesan cheese. Second, the burgers are cooked differently. The patty is placed in a cold skillet. After heat is applied and the burgers begin to sizzle the pan is covered. The burgers are cooked for 2-3 minutes per side so this dish comes together pretty quickly, taking just over half an hour from start to finish. Starting with one pound of ground turkey I made 6 patties, three ounces each. Four of these were stored in the refrigerator to be cooked and eaten over the next few days. The leftovers took about one extra minute per side to cook.

It is probably not fair to think of these as hamburgers made with ground turkey, rather they are their own thing and not just some supposedly healthier version of the American classic.  They are good and arguably worth the extra effort that goes into making them. They have good flavor and are juicy and tender, thanks to the added ingredients, with a nice crust. Like hamburgers they have a tendency to tighten up when cooked thus it is very important to make a generous dimple in the middle of the patty before it is cooked. I don't know if we'll have these again but they were worth having for dinner several times this week.