Turkey Bruschetta Burger

Our first recipe to share was truly "love at first bite"! Neither of us will eat raw tomatoes on sandwiches or salads, but marinate them in some balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, red onions, and basil and we'll get on board! This dish is perfect for summer and using up home-grown tomatoes (which we didn't do, but would've been even better!). We've made this dish in a cast iron skillet and on the grill and much prefer the cast iron to give the burger a nice sear and extra flavor. We inherited our cast iron skillet from my grandmother Troutman.  It's well-seasoned and well-loved.  It gives us amazing flavor to burgers.  YUM.

Open Face Bruschetta Turkey Burgers, serves 4 (adapted from SkinnyTaste)

 INGREDIENTS

Bruschetta
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1 TB extra virgin olive oil
2 TB balsamic vinegar
kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
4-5 medium vine ripe tomatoes
2 TB minced garlic (or less if you aren't garlic lovers)
4 TB fresh basil leaves, chiffonade (see picture below)

Turkey zucchini burgers
1.25 lbs lean ground turkey
1 small zucchini, grated (1 cup, or 5 oz)
1/4 cup seasoned whole wheat breadcrumbs (we buy plain and throw in our own Italian seasonings)
1/2 TB garlic powder
1 TB red onion, grated
salt and fresh pepper
Oil for the pan

To serve
4 cups arugula
Fresh tomato slices (optional)

Preparation
For bruschetta, de-stem the tomatoes, cut in half, and remove all the seeds. Chop tomatoes, place in bowl.  Next you will dice your red onion and do a chiffonade of your basil.  To do this, roll a bunch of the leaves and cut through to get something that looks like this:

 Add the diced red onion, garlic, basil, olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper to the bowl with chopped tomatoes. Mix and taste. Adjust salt and pepper, to taste and set aside.

For turkey burgers, squeeze the excess moisture from the grated zucchini in a paper towel. In a large bowl, combine the ground turkey, shredded zucchini, breadcrumbs, garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Form into 4 equal sized patties about 6 oz each.

(we only made 3)

Preheat large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. To oil the pan, I like to dip a paper towel in canola oil and carefully rub the skillet. We successfully used an oil spray can (you can buy them and put in your own oil to avoid the yucky chemicals in products like PAM), but it recently broke. Oil spray works great, too, and you can spray the actual patties rather than the skillet if you like.

Place turkey patties in skillet. Cook turkey burgers until browned, about 5 minutes, then flip and cook another 5 minutes. The amount of time your patties take to cook will vary! Be sure to cook through.

cast-iron goodness

To serve, place 1 cup arugula on each plate and add tomato slices if using. Place turkey patty on top. Top with bruschetta mix. We served this with grilled zucchini rounds (lightly oiled and sprinkled with Mrs. Dash) and whole wheat orzo. We just put all the ingredients in a pile and enjoyed!

This is hands-down the best turkey burger I've ever eaten! We hope you'll try it and enjoy it!