These Harissa Turkey Burgers are easy to make and super tasty – serve them with Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges and a simple Middle-Eastern inspired salad for a healthy, but totally delicious alternative to the usual beef burger and chips, and all in under 30 minutes!
A few weeks ago I was contacted by British Turkey and asked to come up with an innovative dish with the theme ‘Best of British’ – which is how I came up with my delicious Turkey Tikka Masala Meatballs, using turkey mince flavoured with garam masala to make the meatballs and creating a simple coconut milk based curry sauce to serve them in. It went down a storm in our house and I think it’s all set to become a firm family favourite.
I really loved working with turkey mince so much, that I wanted to make something else with it. One of the ideas I had considered when creating the dish for British Turkey was to make turkey burgers and I still really wanted to give these a try. I discovered with the Turkey Tikka Masala Meatballs, that turkey is a really great flavour carrier and I wanted to see what other flavours turkey would work well with.
One of my favourite flavours to work with, at the moment, is harissa – a spicy, fragrant paste from North Africa – and so the idea of making Harissa Turkey Burgers began to develop in my head. Before long it had been joined by the idea of serving them with Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges and a simple Middle-Eastern inspired salad, to create an easy peasy, healthy, Middle-Eastern take on burger and chips.
I tested out my ideas and was pleased to bits that it worked out brilliantly – I shouldn’t really have been surprised – it would have been hard to go wrong with such fab flavours.
I really like working with the turkey mince – it is such a joy to make meatballs and burgers with, and makes a lovely, healthy alternative to the usual beef burger. To make this meal even healthier, I swapped the usual white burger buns for brown – but if you are trying to cut down on carbs, you could miss these out altogether and enjoy a bunless burger – perhaps served on a lettuce leaf instead.
The Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges are an adaptation of my Homemade Sweet Potato and Smoked Paprika Chips. If you are not a fan of cumin, you could sprinkle over some smoked paprika, chilli flakes or cayenne pepper instead – or why not try a mixture?
I think a gutsy French or Spanish rosé would be a good wine choice here or, if you prefer red, a Grenache based Southern French red would also work well.
If you like this recipe……you might also like:
Harissa Turkey Burgers with Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges
Ingredients
Middle-Eastern Inspired Salad
- 1 small red onion diced
- Juice of 1 lime
- Salt and pepper
- ½ cucumber diced
- 4 medium tomatoes diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 100 g feta crumbled
- 2 tablespoons fresh coriander roughly chopped
Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges
- 1 kg sweet potatoes (roughly 2 medium ones)
- 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (or melted coconut oil)
Harissa Turkey Burgers
- 500 g turkey thigh mince
- 4 tablespoons harissa paste (be careful with strength, mine was fairly mild!)
- 2 cloves garlic grated
- 4 wholemeal burger buns (or ordinary bread rolls)
- 4 large lettuce leaves (optional)
Instructions
Middle-Eastern Inspired Salad
- Start by preparing your salad. Placed the diced red onion in a large bowl or serving platter, squeeze over the lime juice and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix together – this will help soften the flavour of the onions.
- Add the diced cucumber and tomatoes and mix together again. Leave the salad on the side to allow the flavours to develop. Then, just before you serve everything up, crumble over the feta and scatter the coriander on top.
Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges
- Preheat your oven to 220C / 200C fan / gas mark 7 / 425F.
- Cut the sweet potatoes into wedges - and do leave the skin on for extra goodness!
- Place the sweet potato wedges in a bowl and add the cumin, salt and oil. Mix together using your hands or a spoon. Place the wedges on a non-stick baking tray, well-spaced out so they are not touching each other.
- Put the baking tray in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, remove the tray from the oven and carefully turn over the wedges using tongs or a fish slice.
- Put the tray back in the oven for a further 10 minutes or until cooked.
Harissa Turkey Burgers
- While the chips are cooking, get started on the burgers. Preheat your grill (broiler) to medium/high and leave your grill rack in the grill to heat up too (this should prevent the burgers from sticking).
- Place the turkey mince, harissa and garlic in a bowl and combine thoroughly using your hands, then shape into 4 patties and place carefully on your preheated grill rack.
- Grill for 8 minutes on the first side and 7 minutes on the second side or until the thickest part of the burger is cooked all the way through (slice one in half to check, if you are not sure).
- When your burgers are cooked place them in the wholemeal buns, together with a lettuce leaf and serve with the chips and salad – don’t forget to add the feta and coriander to the salad before serving!
Notes
Pin Harissa Turkey Burgers with Cumin Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges for later
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Linkies
I am linking this up to Cook Blog Share.
Charlotte Oates says
Mmmm, love the sound of this burger. I’ve not made homemade turkey burgers for ages so it’s about time I made some more. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a jar of harissa in the cupboard too. Love the idea of adding cumin to the sweet potato wedges too – yum!
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Charlotte 🙂 Turkey burgers are FAB and make a nice change from beef ones – harissa works really well with the turkey, and cumin with sweet potato wedges is AMAZING!! Let me know what you think if you try it 🙂 Eb x
Jacqui Bellefontaine says
Yet another fabulous easy peasy family meal that I want to try, you really do my kind of cooking:)
Eb Gargano says
Haha – thanks Jacqui 🙂 And vice versa!! Xx
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain says
I love the sound of these Eb, so much flavour in such a quick & easy meal. I absolutely love the sound of the accompanying sweet potatoes, and the salad – mmmm, bring on the feta 😉
Angela x
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Angela 🙂 The sweet potatoes are pretty fab – the cumin just works so well with them. And, well, you know how much I like feta! 🙂 Eb x
faye Colegate says
That burger close up had my mouth watering!!! #cookblogshare
Eb Gargano says
Haha! Thanks Faye – that’s a great compliment 🙂 Eb x
Mads says
These look amazing and so simple to make! x
Eb Gargano says
Aw, thanks Mads, they really are super tasty and very easy to make 🙂 Xx
Mandy says
This sounds really good. I love harissa but haven’t experimented with it much yet. And I love sweet potato chips – so one of my favourite things to eat! Thanks for sharing with #CookBlogShare
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Mandy 🙂 I love harissa too – I keep dreaming up things to put it in and on! Totally agree about sweet potato chips – so yummy! And healthy too – love it when that happens 🙂 Eb x
Kate - gluten free alchemist says
These are great Eb. I have been a big fan of harissa for many years. I love its smoky earthiness and its background gentle heat.
Made your paprika sweet potato chips a few weeks ago…… they were yum too!!!!!
Eb Gargano says
Harissa is awesome, isn’t it – just an incredible flavour. Oooh I’m glad you liked the smoked paprika version of my sweet potato chips – they are really good with cumin too – or both!! I can’t get enough of them at the moment! And it’s great to be able to eat chips, knowing they are actually doing you some good!! Thank you so much for your lovely comments 🙂 Eb x
Ilka says
This turkey meatball recipe with harissa sounds amazing! What a nice change from the traditional recipe!
The beautiful colors of this feta cucumber salad caught my eye instantly. An amazing salad makes an already great dish even better! Pinning and stumbling for later!
Eb Gargano says
Thank you, Ilka 🙂 I do so love giving classics a bit of a twist – I love Middle Eastern flavours and they work so well in this alternative take on burger and chips. I am just nuts about this kind of salad at the moment too – I keep coming up on slight variations on a red onion/cucumber/tomato base, but this was the first time I’d tried it with feta – it was fabulous – a salad to make over and over again for sure!! Eb x
Angela @marathonsandmotivation.com says
These sound delicious! I love the new look of your blog too 🙂 Pinned!!
Eb Gargano says
Thanks Angela! They are indeed very delicious and super easy to make, too! Aw, thanks for your kind comments about my blog. Been doing a lot of work on my social media too lately – making everything a bit neater and tidier and more professional looking! 🙂 Eb x