Turkey Burgers with Maple Caramelized Onions

Turkey burgers are a summer staple meal at my house. I often find turkey burgers a little dull, but these hit the flavor spot with the mix of onions, cheese, and a nice brioche bun. The maple caramelized onions were a great addition. I let the onions caramelize while I assembled and grilled the burgers—I love multi-tasking!

For the initial 25 minutes of caramelizing, I kept adjusting the heat until I got some good color on the onions. I found that closer to medium on my gas range worked better than low, but I kept a constant eye on them to prevent burning. After adding the maple syrup, the onions quickly darkened and appeared caramelized. The onions didn’t stick to the pan and I could scrape up the nice fond from the pan. I used 94% lean ground turkey.

A tribute to healthier eating, these turkey burgers are easy to put together and make a delicious meal. The additional maple syrup adds an underlying and quite satisfying sweetness to the onions, but I must say I would be just as satisfied with onions caramelized without the addition of the syrup.

Using a nonstick skillet helped ensure that nothing got stuck or burned. As the onions cook, they take on a beautiful color and I think some good advice would be to let them go as long as you can while preserving a deep caramel color, as they only get better.

I mixed the burgers while the onions were sautéing and opted to make them indoors on a grill pan. The 12- to 15- minute timing was spot-on, and the end product was delicious. My husband loved the mustard! Next time I’d play around with some other ingredients, like sautéed red peppers or spinach and a bit of feta. Really, these burgers are a good base for adding anything that suits you.

These burgers could easily be prepped in advance—perhaps some chilling in the refrigerator would make them hold together just a bit better. The onions could be made days in advance and reheated in a skillet or the microwave.

At some points, while making these turkey burgers, I was convinced that they were going to be a disaster, but in the end, they came out pretty good, and we enjoyed them. The sweet and spicy flavor of the onions added something distinctive and helped counteract the ground turkey’s blandness. 7 minutes after the addition of the maple syrup and cayenne, the colors had deepened, and the onions were shimmery and translucent.

Typically I mix light and dark meat when working with ground poultry, as all-white meat can be way too dry when cooked, but I wasn’t been able to find any dark-meat ground turkey when I was at the store and decided to use only the breast meat. Oddly, even with only 1 egg and 1 tablespoon mustard to moisten it, the raw mixture was very wet and sloppy to work with. In addition, the patties themselves were huge, bigger than I would typically make them.

They shrunk a bit as they cooked and were less monster-sized for serving, but they were mighty big at the time they were formed. I used parsley in the meat mixture and would do that again. It adds a little something to meatloaves and turkey meatballs.

The sliced Cheddar I grabbed in the store turned out to be hickory-smoked, and that was very good on the finished burgers. Due to scheduling constraints, I prepared much of this recipe ahead of time, so all I had to do when I got home was cook the patties, reheat the onions briefly, and assemble everything. The resting time in the refrigerator helped firm the patties up, so they were less floppy and held together fine for grilling.

Even though the cheese had been sitting out of the refrigerator for a while, my slices were still solid and cold when they went on the burgers. There wasn’t enough residual heat from the just-cooked patties and the rewarmed onions on either side of the cheese to melt it at all. Since the buns had gotten a little drier in the oven than I wanted, I reheated the complete burgers in buns in the microwave for about 20 seconds on high, and the cheese and bun softened and everything in the package worked together a little better. I’ll make these again.

These turkey burgers are great if you want to try leaner burgers without compromising flavor. Ground turkey can be bland and dry, but the garlic and mustard add depth, and the egg keeps the patties moist. The salty Cheddar goes well with the sweet caramelized onions and a little heat from the cayenne.

More good news: There isn’t that much work involved here. The onions don’t take long to caramelize, and the maple syrup seemed to speed up the process during the last several minutes. The onions became darker and shinier in no time without sticking to the pan. You can enjoy these burgers in the winter months as well. Just cook the patties in the frying pan and toast the buns under a broiler for a matter of seconds.

What a fabulous harmony of flavors! I love this turkey burgers recipe which is a relatively quick and easy dinner to get on the table and yet is packed full of flavor. When I’m looking for a satisfying meal made from start to finish in about an hour, this is one of my go-to recipes, I’ve made it at least half a dozen times.

Served along with a salad and some roasted potatoes, this meal was better than any restaurant version I’ve had. I’ve always opted to cook the patties in my cast iron pan out of convenience, and the patties get a nice brown sear every time while still remaining moist inside.

When mixing the ingredients together, keep mixing till well incorporated and they will loosely bind. Quick refrigeration before forming the patties does the trick although I have never chilled these overnight. The caramelized onions really make this and are well worth the effort. Last night we added avocado to our burgers, all I can say is, amazing! You know a recipe is good when your family is still talking about how outstanding the burgers were even hours after the meal.