Turkey Burgers with Savory Homemade Warm Relish

By Ted KallmyerUpdated August 21, 2022

Ground turkey is a tasty way to up your protein intake, but reduce the fat amount usually found in ground beef.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to use ground turkey and I make this recipe often because my homemade warm relish makes these turkey burgers absolutely delicious as well as highly nutritious.

I also ditch the bun because who needs it since its only job is to hold in the good stuff anyway. Leafy lettuce can do this job with virtually no calories.

I usually eat two of these as my complete meal, but others may want some sides especially if making this recipe for 4 people.
Oven baked sweet potato fries are a great compliment to this recipe.

Bunless Turkey Burgers with Savory Warm Relish

Here’s how to make this recipe and from start to finish it usually takes about 45 minutes to prepare these turkey burgers.

Turkey Burgers with Savory Warm Relish

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Ground turkey is a tasty way to up your protein intake, but reduce the fat amount usually found in ground beef. This great recipe has half the calories of a beef burger.

Servings

Calories 258

Ingredients

Ground turkey (¼ pound patties, 93% lean) seasoned with a little salt & pepper
1 medium onion
1 red bell pepper thinly sliced
3 cups red cabbage shredded
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¼ teaspoon garlic salt
4 large leafs of lettuce (romaine, red leaf, or green leaf)

Instructions

Wash and dry the lettuce leaves.
In a large skillet sauté the onion, pepper, and red cabbage with the olive oil until soft.
Add the garlic salt and balsamic vinegar and allow to simmer until the vinegar and veggies are shiny and caramelized. Stir often. (Most of the liquid will have cooked off).
Keep this relish warm.
Grill or pan fry 4 quarter pound turkey burgers until just done. (Cooking them too long will make them dry) Usually 4 minutes on each side on a hot grill is sufficient, but a little longer if you are using the frozen type.
Now place a turkey burger on the stem end of the lettuce leaf, top with a generous portion of the warm relish.
Serve! Feeds 4 with other sides or 2 as a complete meal.

Nutrition

Calories: 258kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 23g | Fat: 13g | Fiber: 3g

What’s great about these turkey burgers is that they don’t need any other condiments since the savory relish provides so much flavor as well as the moisture that high calorie condiments like mayo usually provide.

An average quarter pound beef burger with a bun, mayo, ketchup, onion, lettuce, and tomato would be around 500 calories or more.