Miraculously Delicious Turkey Burgers (Moist! Juicy! Flavorful!)

Made without any egg, bread crumbs, oil, or mayonnaise, these turkey burgers remain moist and juicy when cooked and are so incredibly flavorful! They take no time to throw together and they’ve become a favorite family weeknight meal for their ease and deliciousness.

I first learned about these turkey burgers via Katie Couric’s newsletter, which featured a video of Mindy Kaling making them, who credited the recipe to Oprah Winfrey.

The recipe was like no other turkey burger I had ever seen, calling for blending together an apple, cilantro, scallions, mango chutney, soy sauce, and a few other seasonings in a food processor, mixing the herby spiced purée with the ground turkey, then forming and grilling the patties.

The recipe did not call for eggs or bread crumbs or mayonnaise or oil, ingredients so often included in turkey burger recipes to prevent the patties from being dry, which turkey burgers can be due to the leanness of the meat.

But these burgers were not at all dry. They were moist and juicy and oh so flavorful! They soon became a frequently requested meal by my children, which I happily honored, given their ease and deliciousness. Something I love about the recipe is that the shaped patties can be stored in the fridge for 3 to 4 days, then cooked as needed.

One thing I did not love about the recipe was the measurements, which called for 1.5 pounds of ground turkey, when turkey typically comes in 1-pound packages. Doubling the recipe yielded a few too many patties for my needs, but scaling the recipe up by 1.33 worked perfectly.

I’ve finally added the recipe below with the scaled-up measurements and a few other tiny changes and notes. The patties can be made on a grill pan or broiled or on an outdoor grill with the help of a grill mat — see the recipe box for all of the details.

As always, I hope you love them.

How to Make Turkey Burgers, Step by Step

Gather your ingredients:

The only potentially hard ingredient you need is the mango chutney. I found this brand at my co-op, and I’ve been really liking it. I’m sure whatever brand you can find will be great:

You’ll also need ground turkey. I look for dark meat ground turkey (as opposed to leaner ground turkey made with from the breasts), but use what you like/can find:

Combine the seasonings in a food processor:

Then purée until smooth:

Pour the sauce over the ground turkey meat:

Then mix with your hands to combine:

Lightly oil a 1/2 cup dry measuring cup, then use it to scoop the mixture into 8 portions:

Using lightly oiled hands, shape each portion into a burger shape — the mixture is very wet/moist:

At this point you can cover the burgers and transfer to the fridge (for as long as 3 to 4 days) or you can cook them right away. I love the convenience of making them ahead — I’ve been placing four burgers each on two dinner plates; then tucking each plate into a ziptop bag and placing in the fridge until I need them. When ready, cook as many as you need in a grill pan for roughly 8 minutes total flipping after 3 to 4 minutes. Alternatively, you can broil the burgers for 8 minutes, flipping after 4 (see recipe box for more details).

You also could grill them, which is how we made them last summer, using a grill mat, for fear of grilling the delicate patties directly on the grates:

My children love these burgers with lettuce, ketchup, and relish. Ben and I love them with some sort of yogurt sauce, like raita or tzatziki. Recently I made a radish raita that was pretty good:

The original recipe calls for a pretzel bun, but you could use anything you like: English muffins, brioche buns, etc. Real talk: during the week, I’m buying the buns.

So juicy, so flavorful, so good!

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