Let's face it, folks - eating hamburgers will shorten your life, especially if you get them at some fast food place.  But about a year ago, I stopped off at a restaurant in San Antonio and had a turkey burger that would knock your socks off.   Being the inquisitive old fart I am, there was no way I was leaving there without a thorough examination of that burger.  Then I experimented some and came up with a good tasting turkey burger of my own.

Getting ground turkey to taste like a beef hamburger is impossible, but the truth is that even beef burgers aren't very good if you get the ground beef that's lowfat.  You can always add the fat to a turkey burger by mixing it with a little sausage or beef, but that's cheating, and it defeats the purpose of eating turkey.  I made mine taste decent by adding spices to the meat itself, them doctoring the burger with all sorts of good tasting vegetables. 

First, the meat itself.  Buy ground turkey meat, then mix it with a generous amount of finely chopped onions and peppers.  Myself, I use red onions, and I usually chop up a jalepino pepper.  Add some salt (go easy and use sea salt), black pepper, and powdered garlic salt (easy here too).  You can experiment here, using you own spices and vegetables.  Just make sure you don't add things that increase fat, cholesterol, and salt content.

Go with whole wheat buns, even oat bran if you can find them.  Use low fat mayo and the mustard of our choice (around here we buy cheap yellow mustard).  Sliced red onion and avacado is important to the taste of the burger, so make sure you use them.  You also need lettuce, whatever variety pleases you.  And that's all you need for a great turkey burger.

But . . . if you want to improve the taste (my opinion), the saute your onions and some mushrooms in olive oil.  It also adds a little fat to the burger, but you can go easy of this stuff.  

Stay away from fries and chips, and for sure onion rings.  These things are just another way of getting fat and cholesterol into your diet.  Leave 'em off.