Buffalo Turkey Burgers with Celery and Carrot Slaw

Buffalo Blue Cheese Turkey Burgers

Turkey burgers are far and away one of my favorite go to meals because you can do so much with them in a short amount of time while keeping them relatively health conscious.  With just a few ingredients and about a half hour you can satisfy any buffalo wing craving.  While you can use store bought blue cheese dressing I really enjoyed making these with my homemade Horseradish Blue Cheese dressing which was featured a few weeks ago.  I don't know about you but one of my favorite things about going out for wings is the crunchy fresh celery and carrots on the side dipped in my buffalo sauce and blue cheese, but thinly sliced they make a fantastic slaw on top of this burger.

Ingredients

Burgers

1 lb. lean ground turkey

4 oz. crumbled blue cheese

1 tsp. garlic powder

Salt and pepper

4 tsp. butter (optional)

4 tbsp. Franks Buffalo Sauce

2 tbsp. coconut oil, or cooking oil of your choice

Slaw

2 green onions, green part, sliced thin

2 carrots, peeled, sliced thin

3 stalks celery, sliced thin

Blue Cheese Dressing (homemade or store bought, as needed)

Instructions

Mix the ground turkey with 2 ounces of the crumbled blue cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Don’t over mix because that can create a tough burger.  Make 4, 4 ounce patties and season the outside with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

I like to use a mandoline to slice my carrots and celery uniformly but if you do not have one just be mindful of your fingers and try to keep the slices similar in size.  Mix together the green onions, carrots and celery in a bowl and set aside.

In a non-stick skillet (try to use one that can fit all four burgers at once!!!) add your cooking oil and heat it up, a hot pan will create a nice crust on your burgers.  Add your burgers, DO NOT PRESS DOWN ON THEM, cook 4 minutes and flip, DO NOT PRESS DOWN ON THEM!  At the two-minute mark on the second side, pour the Franks on each burger and one teaspoon of butter to each burger (you can omit this if you wish) add the remainder of the crumbled blue cheese to each burger and cover the pan.  Let cook for 2-3 more minutes or until the internal temperature is 165 degrees. 

Top each burger with slaw and drizzle with blue cheese dressing.  Can be served with or without a bun and is excellent on a bed of lettuce as a burger salad.

When it comes to burgers there are some very important rules to live by and not pressing down on them is in the top 3.  It might seem instinctual but when you press down on a burger you are squeezing all the delicious juice out, and while on a beef burger you have wiggle room if you do this with a turkey burger you will end up with a dried out turkey hockey puck and no body enjoys those!