"Cheese" Stuffed Turkey Burgers

  I saw a cheese stuffed burger patty while watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives the other day and decided to try it last night while my husband had the grill going. These came out lovely but you'll have to take my word for it because I forgot to take a picture. :/  They were like puffed up, fat burger patties.
 Around here we often eat burger patties with no buns since wheat, rice, oat, and egg free buns are hard to come by. It often feels like we are missing something, but these had enough personality to hold their own on the plate without buns. Even though they call for some hot sauce they had really no hotness, just great flavor and when you cut into the middle, all this yummy gooey cheese came out... so good. I imagine that on a bun that fits your particular needs with all the typical yummy condiments, these would be spectacular!

By the way, I think these scaled down into meatballs would be to die for!

Cheese Stuffed Turkey Burgers
1 1/2 lb lean ground turkey*
1/2 tsp salt
a few cracks of fresh ground pepper
2 tsp Frank's Original Hot Sauce (or other vegan hot sauce)
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup Daiya Mozzarella Shreds (or Cheddar, or even Pepperjack)

Mix all ingredients except cheese in a bowl until well incorporated, but be careful not to over mix. Form ping pong ball size balls of turkey into 8-10 thin patties. Take about 3/4 tsp cheese shreds and place them in the center on a patty, then place another patty on top. Carefully press and smoosh the edges of the two patties together. Repeat with the rest of the patties. Grill 6 minutes on each side or until well browned.


I found other variations of this recipe online that included grilled onions and bacon bits in the cheese mixture in the center. I'm not quite sure how that might work with turkey bacon but I'd certainly be willing to try!

*I've found in my many adventures cooking with ground turkey that the quality and fat content of the turkey is imperative. We typically use Butterball but I found some frozen "tubes" of Jenni-O ground turkey at Walmart for pretty cheap so I tried it. It contained much more fluid/fat than what I was used to (reminded me of ground beef) and everything I tried to make fell apart. Meatloaf, burgers, meatballs, etc. The cheap stuff is great for taco meat, or Shepherd's pie, or any other dish that calls for browned ground turkey, but if you are forming anything out of it, use better quality, leaner meat!