Cilantro Chili Turkey Burgers

I wanted to start this post off by giving mucho credito to the wonderful Iowa Girl Eats for being my inspiration for this recipe. Kristin posted a Copy Cat Trader Joe’s Chili Lime Chicken Burger recipe earlier this week and I was pretty much sold based off of her photos. I had plans to use her exact recipe, however I did my shopping at TJ’s and I couldn’t find ground chicken and decided to go with ground turkey instead. I also completely forgot to add the lime! Hence: Cilantro Chili Turkey Burgers….

After receiving multiple requests to post more meat-based recipes, I thought a “juicy,” healthy turkey burg would be perfect! Not to mention…I’m dating a grill master. *WHAT* Lee’s dating someone? Recipe first, sappy talk second.

Cilantro Chili Turkey Burgers

Ingredients

*Makes 6-8 burgers*

• 2 lbs. ground turkey
• 2 green onions, minced
• 1 red pepper, finely diced
• 1 egg
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1/2t red chili flakes
• 1/2t garlic salt
• 1/2t salt
• 1/2t pepper

Method

1. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together. Don’t be afraid to get messy and use your hands.
2. Next, line a pan with tin foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Then, form your burger batter into patties. Mine made 6 medium-large burgers.
3. Transfer your tin foil onto the grill. The tinfoil prevents the burgers from sticking to the grill racks. The temperature of the grill should be roughly 375F. Cook each side for about 6-7 minutes covered. This will depend on the thickness of your burger.
4. Serve on a bed of spinach for a gf version, or on a toasted bun for you gluten lovers out there.

I prepared the patties and handed the reigns over to Blake. He is one fantastic griller. I have never had a piece of meat that was under or over cooked.

I ended up making another version of my Healthy Fiesta Lime Rice as a side dish (recipe later). My plate was spinach + rice + burg.

I also topped it with some balsamic!

Blake’s not g/f, so he had his with a grilled whole wheat bun.

Okay, okay. Enough about food…on to the juicy stuff. I am sure you have been wondering who this cute Blake guy is. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about him in almost every post for the last few months. Well, he is someone very special to my heart. He’s actually my first EVER “official” boyfriend. I’ve dated quite a bit, but never nothing has ever turned into anything serious.

I’ve actually almost told you guys about Blake 4 or 5 times now, but didn’t know how to do it. At one point, I was going to name a post: “I’m dating someone,” but I thought that was a little too awkward. Not sure why I chose tonight, but what the hell.

We were actually “set up” by our mutual friend, Linley, back in October, but I was kinda-sorta seeing someone else and I’m not really in to dating multiple people at once. The first time we met was at a happy hour, but I didn’t really give Blake the time of day. I was definitely playing the “I don’t want to be anything more than friends” card. Anyways, long story short, Blake and I kept in touch for the next few months and he finally won my heart over (I was single at the time of course). I guess you could say we’ve been dating since the first of the year and became “official boyfriend/girlfriend” on Valentine’s Day (1, 2, 3 *awwwww*) and have been falling hard ever since.

How could I not be attracted to someone who 1.) likes quinoa 2.) works out 3.) is a Kansas boy 4.) likes to clean 5.) loves his family 6.) genuinely likes his job and 7.) doesn’t think I’m crazy for taking pictures of the things I eat. Blake is extremely supportive and thinks FFF is the greatest thing and that just makes me happy. Plus, he will pretty much eat anything I make  Anyways, I could go on and on about Blake, but I’ll let you get to know him through my future posts.

It was nice to finally get that off my chest. I feel like I’ve been lying to you!

What is your favorite kind of meat?
Who is your favorite blogger to get recipe-inspiration from?

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