Let’s Get Naked! Naked Turkey Burgers (Gluten-free, Egg-free)

This post is extremely overdue. Sometimes I take pictures of meals or plan posts and then somehow manage to neglect them for weeks… or months. This particular meal is one that I made for some friends over the Memorial Day weekend…. yes, Memorial Day, in May… Anyway, let’s move on.

When I think of summer holidays, I think of grilling out, and one of my favorite things to grill is homemade turkey burgers! Rob is usually the grill master, but I think it must have been raining on this particular day because I made these burgers inside on the stove. Regardless of their cooking location, these babies were delicious! It’s been exceedingly hard for me to find bread that is gluten free and vegan, as most of the GF bread products in town contain eggs 😦 Thus, I decided to bypass the bun altogether and opt for the exceedingly healthier option- lettuce wraps!

For the turkey burgers, I added chopped red onion and red pepper to ground turkey, seasoned with salt and pepper, formed into patties, and threw them into a skillet with some olive oil. I cooked the burgers until browned, about 7-10 minutes each side on medium-high heat.

While the turkey burgers were cooking, I sautéd some fresh asparagus in olive oil with some sliced mushrooms and chopped red onion, red pepper, and yellow pepper. I lightly seasoned this veggie medley with salt and pepper.

Now, for my favorite part- the toppings! I wish I had taken a picture of the spread I had set out: Daiya cheddar cheese, fresh tomato slices, fresh avocado slices, red onions, organic ketchup, and leafy lettuce wraps! I plated the cooked turkey burger patties on a large bed of leafy lettuce and let everyone load up on toppings.

I served these deliciously stacked patties with the aforementioned sautéed veggie medley and brown rice with quinoa. Mmm I can’t even begin to describe how juicy, flavorful, and delicious these turkey burgers were! Because my lettuce leafs were so big, we were able to wrap up the turkey burgers into these delicious little flavor parcels. The cool, crisp lettuce was the perfect counterbalance to the juicy and savory turkey burger. And the toppings, oh my… The real star for me was the avocado- umpff, I love me some avocado on a turkey burger or veggie burger… or anything, really.

For dessert, we had a special treat. Rob had gotten a gluten-free vegan chocolate cake made by Amy’s Kitchen. Oh my goodness, tastes like real chocolate cake! I had to give it an air of being remotely healthy, so I served it with a Gala apple and blueberry fruit salad and topped the modest slice of cake with some fresh sliced strawberries (this blue plate is a side plate, so it’s really not that much cake…. shh, we just couldn’t help ourselves). As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not the biggest fan of the fruit-and-chocolate combination, but the juxtaposition between fresh, sweet strawberries and rich, dense chocolate makes my knees weak.

Overall, this meal was a perfect summer holiday feast! Writing this post makes me want to make some more turkey burgers (or veggie burgers this time!) and sweet talk some lovely individual into grilling them for me 😉 There’s still some summer days left before school starts and fall creeps in, so grab some lettuce, your burger of choice, get outside, and get grilling!