Celebrate the tastes of Thanksgiving any time of the year with this delicious blended turkey burger.
Why wait until November to enjoy your favorite Thanksgiving flavors: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes? As part of our ongoing burger of the month series, I bring it all together to create the ultimate Thanksgiving-inspired burger – a turkey and stuffing blended patty topped with sweet potato waffle fries and tart, tangy cranberry barbecue sauce on a buttery brioche bun!
The best part of it all? By blending the stuffing with the ground turkey, you not only ensure an ultra-moist burger, you also get little bits of crunch from exposed stuffing that gets crispy on the grill.
Turkey and Stuffing Blended Burger Recipe
Rate this RecipeIt’s Thanksgiving every day of the year thanks to this moist and flavorful turkey and stuffing blended burger with sweet potato fries and homemade cranberry BBQ sauce.
Ingredients
Method
- Prep. Prepare the stuffing mix and the waffle cut sweet potato fries according to the package instructions.
- As the stuffing and fries cook, begin preparing the cranberry BBQ sauce by pureeing the whole berry cranberry sauce in a blender or food processor until smooth. Combine the pureed cranberry sauce, BBQ sauce, and the brown sugar in a small saucepan and simmer while stirring periodically until the brown sugar has had time to dissolve completely and the sauce is warmed through, approximately 10 minutes.
- Combine the ground turkey and 1 cup (236.6 ml) of the cooled stuffing in a bowl and blend well until the stuffing is evenly dispersed throughout the turkey. Reserve the remaining stuffing to serve with the burgers. Divide the burger mixture into 4 even portions and form into patties. Season both sides of the patties with kosher salt followed by Simon and Garfunkel spice rub.
- Fire up. Prepare a grill for indirect cooking by placing a chimney full of pre-heated charcoal briquets on one side of the grill’s charcoal grate in order to create direct and indirect cooking zones. Adjust the grill vents to bring the temperature to about 400°F (204.4°C) on the indirect side. On a gas grill, adjust the temperature knobs so that one half of the grill is off and the other half is heated enough to maintain a temperature of approximately 400°F (204.4°C) on the indirect side.
- Cook. Place the turkey and stuffing blended patties on the indirect side of the grill, positioning the vent directly above the burgers in order to force the smoke over and around the meat. Cook the patties for about 5 minutes.
- Push the tip of a rapid-read thermometer such as the Thermapen into the side of both burgers. When the temperature reaches 105°F (40.6°C), flip the burgers and cook for approximately 5 more minutes until they reach 140°F (60°C). Because they are not over direct heat, you do not need to flip them often.
- Move the turkey and stuffing patties to the direct heat side of the grill to brown them. Leave the lid up so the heat is concentrated on one side of each burger. If the fire flares up, move the burger to another spot. Flip the meat every minute to form a nice crust on both sides.
- Remove the patties from the grill once they reach an internal temperature of 165°F (73.9°C).
- Serve. Begin assembling the burgers by placing a turkey and stuffing blended burger patty on each bottom bun. Top each patty with a generous helping of sweet potato fries. Drizzle the cranberry BBQ sauce over the sweet potato fries and crown the burger with the top bun. Serve immediately with remaining stuffing and sweet potato fries.
Notes
About the sweet potato fries. If waffle cut sweet potato fries are not available, feel free to substitute frozen traditional cut sweet potato fries or, better yet, our homemade grill fried sweet potato fries.
About the salt. Remember, kosher salt is half the concentration of table salt so if you use table salt, use half as much. Click here to read more about salt and how it works.
