Greek turkey burger

There are always new recipes that come out for burgers and always the search for the perfect one. I've done an Italian sausage burger for this blog already so today I made a Greek turkey burger. There recently has been a request for healthy foods at my work so this is a great healthier version of burgers. 

Greek Turkey Burger

Recipe from thenovicechefblog.com

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1 lb extra lean ground turkey

1/2 cup crumbled reduced fat feta cheese

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 cup fresh baby spinach leaves, chopped

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp garlic powder

salt and pepper

buns
spinach

Tzatziki

For tzatziki:

6 oz fat free Greek yogurt

juice of 1/2 a medium lemon

1 medium cucumber, peeled

3 large cloves garlic, minced

garlic salt, to taste

cracked black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. To prepare the tzatziki, slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Finely shred the cucumber using a mandoline and season with salt. Let sit for 10 minutes. Squeeze out the water. Combine the cucumber with the remaining ingredients, seasoning with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving. 
2. Meanwhile, make the patties by combine the turkey - garlic powder. Season with salt and pepper. Mix until all the ingredients are incorporated. Form into 4 patties and cook either in the oven, on the grill, or under the broiler. Cook until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. 
3. To assemble the burgers, lightly toast the buns. Top with a patty, spinach and a generous dollop of tzatziki. Top with other bun and serve immediately. 

Nutritional Analysis:
per serving (1 burger with 1/4 of tzatziki): 210 calories, 3.6g fat, 8.7g carbohydrates, .3g fiber, 33g protein

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

As far as burgers go, this is yet another simple one. If packed in oil, make sure to drain the sun-dried tomatoes before combining it with the turkey. The ground turkey already is moist so you don't even need a binder to hold the patties together. 

Look at the colors of the ingredients! Beautiful!

Make sure you taste the burgers before you start making all the patties. Form a small patty and cook to see if you need more seasoning. I substituted the garlic powder with fresh minced garlic.

I usually grill my burgers but because it's an indoor grill, the kitchen becomes extremely smokey. To avoid this, I just chose to cook the burgers in the oven, 350 for 10 minutes and finish by broiling for 1 minute. 

For the tzatziki, Greek yogurt is a great choice because of its thick consistency. I've made tzatziki before with plain nonfat yogurt and it became very runny because of the water that comes out from the cucumbers (even after you squeeze the excess water out). Regular yogurt works better because it's thicker but Greek yogurt is the best choice. I omitted the minced garlic in this because people here complain about garlic breath, but kept the garlic salt. 

This is my second time making this burger, and the only reason I made it again was because of the rave reviews from the first time. The patties are incredibly juicy and moist with some tang from the sun-dried tomatoes. The tzatziki also gives a tartness and refreshing quality to the burger. I added sliced tomatoes as well. Healthy and delicious, what more can you ask for?