The Thanksgiving Burger

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Now and then, my smartphone surprises me with an unsolicited trip down memory lane, in the form of a fully animated slide show recapping a theme, an occasion or a season from my past. The most recent of these was a reminder of “Thanksgiving through the years,” and the images from 2020 and 2021 struck me because those years were so different when we were all sidelined by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

As the past-years’ photos scrolled to an indiscernible soundtrack, I noticed that in addition to the more adventurous dishes my husband and I created in 2020 (we figured a dinner without guests was a good time to experiment), I also created some meals that were scaled way back from the usual spread, in a way that might ease the expectation of a full-blown Thanksgiving but still satisfy the yearning for its traditional flavors. These two were delicious enough to make again one day.

Thankfully, Covid has evolved to become more a nuisance than cause for panic (for most of us), and gathering with loved ones is fun again. At our house, we are counting the days until Thanksgiving (14 to go)! But some people still have neither the time nor inclination to produce an entire spread for Thanksgiving, and that has me thinking again about ways to capture the essence of the occasion in a single, simple bite. This is my first— but not last— attempt at making a Thanksgiving burger.

Pretty, isn’t it? 🙂

The Plan

I started this recipe with the bun, and though I considered a store-bought potato bun, I went instead with a recipe I found on King Arthur Baking website for sweet potato sandwich rolls They were very easy to make, and I followed the KA recipe to the letter. The recipe is linked, if you’d like to try them.

My burger is made from ground turkey, with sautéed celery and onions, plus an egg and a panade of herb stuffing mix blended in for structure and traditional flavor. The “burgers,” which were really more like meatloaf patties, were embellished with a spoonful of poultry seasoning to amplify the familiar Thanksgiving flavor. 

I made a basic turkey meatloaf recipe, with herb stuffing mix in the binder and Bell’s poultry seasoning for Thanksgiving flavor.

I thought, for a change of pace, this would be a good time to try the famous “NPR cranberry relish” that I’ve read about over the years. It uses fresh cranberries, sour cream and horseradish, if you can believe it. I made an only a half batch because Les tolerates horseradish but doesn’t love it as much as I do. More on this in a moment.

If you’d like to try the cranberry relish, the recipe is linked here.

Sausage is a core ingredient of my usual holiday dressing, so I flattened some maple sausage patties and cooked them up to layer with my burgers. I buttered and griddled the sweet potato rolls, melted a slice of apple-smoked gruyère over the burgers, topped them with the thin sausage patties and loaded them onto the buns with some baby romaine for freshness.

The extra stuffing mix coating the patties was key to getting the crunchy surface I wanted on the burgers.
My first Thanksgiving burger, with a side of shaved Brussels sprouts, sautéed with onions, salt and pepper.

The Verdict

I had covered all the flavor bases with my plan— sweet potato, turkey, stuffing and cranberry— and overall it was a very tasty burger, but it didn’t exactly scream “Thanksgiving” to me and my husband, and so there will be other efforts. The sweet potato rolls (which I made exactly as written on the KA site) were wonderful, but very subtle in sweet potato flavor and too tall for this sandwich, and that made taking a bite a little tricky (and messy). The herb-seasoned turkey patties were moist and tasty and their crunchy exterior was spot-on. They could have carried a bit more of the savory herb flavor, but otherwise they were excellent and I’ll make them again, for sure.

What about that unusual cranberry relish? This “famous” recipe was the biggest surprise for me, and not in a good way. As someone who really loves the zing of horseradish, I found this stuff—which has oodles of rave reviews online, by the way— to be rather plain, runny and uninteresting, even with the extra hot horseradish. My husband thought the sandwich would be better with a more traditional cooked cranberry topping, and I agreed.

As luck and leftovers would have it, I did have a chance to try again with a few changes! On my second run, I skipped the sausage altogether, and I tried a different cranberry concoction that was so delicious, I will be super excited to share it with you in a post of its own later this week!

Les also requested cheddar rather than the fancy schmancy gruyère. 😉

What about next time?

There’s still room for improvement on this idea and I’m keeping it in the “in-progress” column of my bucket list until I get it right. I’ll share below the recipe I created for the turkey patties because that part of the recipe was great, Thanksgiving or not. But I’d really like to hear from you, too, so that I might incorporate your ideas into a future iteration of the burger. How would you bring your favorite traditional flavors into this “Thanksgiving-in-a-bite challenge?” Please share your ideas in the comments section, and let’s see what we can come up with together!

The Thanksgiving Burger 1.0

  • Servings: About 5
  • Difficulty: Average
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The rest of the burger is a work in progress, but this recipe for Thanksgiving-flavored turkey burger patties is a keeper!


Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Pepperidge Farm herb seasoned stuffing mix, crushed
  • 1/3 cup milk, to moisten the stuffing mix
  • 1/2 sweet onion, minced
  • 1 rib celery heart, strings removed and minced
  • 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 pound ground turkey (I used 90% lean, but turkey breast would be great, too)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon ground poultry seasoning (I used Bell’s brand)
  • Additional 1/2 cup herb stuffing mix, crushed for coating the burgers before frying
  • Olive oil for frying

This ground turkey mixture is much leaner and softer than a typical burger mixture. For easy shaping of the patties, spoon dollops of the meat mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper that is sprinkled with the additional herb stuffing crumbs. Scatter more crumbs on top of the meat dollops and fold the parchment over them to flatten with your palm or a spatula. Be gentle with them, and keep them on the parchment until the skillet is ready.

Directions

  1. Combine herb stuffing crumbs and milk in a small bowl and let rest for at least 15 minutes to soften into a panade. This mixture will help bind together the other ingredients into patties.
  2. Heat a small skillet over medium heat. Add first measure of olive oil and sauté onions and celery until softened. Season with salt and pepper.
  3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine ground turkey, panade, sautéed vegetables, egg and poultry seasoning. Season with salt and pepper. Use a heavy wooden spoon or your hands to fully blend the burger ingredients. Cover bowl and refrigerate a few hours so that the mixture will firm up.
  4. When ready to cook, heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Shape the meat mixture into patties and coat them on both sides with the second measure of crushed stuffing mix.
  5. Carefully arrange burger patties into the skillet, keeping enough room between them for easy turning. Leave them undisturbed for 5 minutes, or until the first side is nicely crusted. Turn the patties to cook the other side. If using cheese on your Thanksgiving burgers, lay the slices over the burgers immediately after turning so that it will melt.
  6. Dress up patties with your favorite toppings.

Spooky Stuffed Peppers

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Before the kiddos head out for trick or treating on Monday night, parents hope that they have a decent, balanced meal in their little bellies. You know, so that they aren’t just chowing down on sugar from all those Snickers, Reeses and Skittles that they get in their trick-or-treat bags.

In my limited experience with children, I learned one lesson loud and clear—a simple way to get kids interested in eating good-for-them food is to make it FUN.

With a little imagination, you can turn an ordinary bell pepper into a fun Halloween supper, and you can fill it with whatever your kids (or grandkids, great-grandkids, neighbor kids, friends’ kids, etc.) like to eat. Mine are stuffed with cooked ground turkey in a Mexican-ish flavor profile—a combination of onions, green bell peppers, celery, garlic and Rotel tomatoes, spiffed up with chili powder and tomato paste—but there’s no reason you couldn’t change it up and make it Italian. Or Greek. Or vegan with a kale and quinoa kind of thing. Or any other combination you think the kids would like to eat. For the big kids at our house (that would be me and my husband), I went in big for veggies and lean protein.

Use any combination of vegetables that makes sense for the flavors you like.

You could use another color of bell pepper if you’d like, but the orange ones are good here, not only for their impersonation of a jack o’lantern, but also because hungry trick or treaters may be more receptive to their flavor, which is sweeter than a typical green bell pepper.

Choose peppers with a good stem, and peppers that will stand up on their own.

To prep the peppers, carefully slice the tops off, taking note of how far down the stem extends so that you keep the top of the pepper intact. Clean out the seeds and excess membranes, and then place the peppers, upside-down, into a glass baking dish with about one inch of water. Put the pepper tops in there, too, and microwave them on high for about five minutes. This will steam and soften the peppers so that they don’t need as much time in the oven after they are stuffed.

When they are cool enough to handle, use the top of a sharp paring knife to cut out triangle eyes and a nose into each bell pepper body. If you’re feeling extra creative, you could also cut a toothy smile into the peppers, too, but be careful because you don’t want the filling to seep out of its whole face.

Preheat the oven, with a rack in the center position. Heat a little olive oil in a skillet and sauté the vegetables until they are just softened. Remember to season with salt and pepper, and then add the spice seasonings to bloom their flavors. Crumble in the ground turkey, a little at a time, and toss to stir until no pink color remains. Add the Rotel and a little tomato paste to intensify the tomato flavor, and a pinch of dried Mexican oregano.

I stuffed my peppers with a Mexican-themed filling, but you could take this in so many other directions!

Spoon the filling into the peppers, lay a slice of sharp cheddar over the filling, and then reposition the pepper tops before sliding it into the oven. At this point, all the ingredients are fully cooked, so the peppers only need to be in the oven long enough to heat through, finish softening and melt the cheese.

Try to position the cheese so that it won’t melt into your peppers’ “eyes!”

Serve the peppers right away with a few spoonfuls of cooked rice, and get those kids costumed up for their night of fun!

Spooky Stuffed Peppers

  • Servings: 4 peppers
  • Difficulty: Average
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This is a fun way to feed the little ones something on the healthy side before they go trick-or-treating for all that candy. Mix and match ingredients based on what the kids like.


Ingredients

  • 4 orange bell peppers (choose them for shape and size, plus strong stems)
  • 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
  • 2 ribs celery, trimmed and chopped
  • 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp. salt-free seasoning (I used a combination of chili powder, cumin and paprika)
  • 1 lb. fresh ground turkey (or other lean ground meat)
  • 10 oz. can Rotel diced tomatoes (there are many heat levels; choose what’s right for you)
  • 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
  • A pinch or two of dried oregano
  • 4 slices sharp cheddar or other favorite melting cheese
  • Brown rice, for serving

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F, with oven rack in center position.
  2. Wash the bell peppers. Carefully cut the tops off the peppers, low enough to keep the stems intact. Remove seeds and membranes and place the peppers upside down in a microwave-safe dish. Add about an inch of water to the dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes, or longer if needed until peppers are somewhat softened. Set aside until cool enough to handle.
  3. While the peppers are cooling, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add oil to the pan and sauté onions, green bell pepper and celery for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add garlic, salt and pepper, plus salt-free seasoning of your choice. Cook another minute.
  4. Crumble ground meat into the skillet, about half at a time so it doesn’t overcrowd the pan. When meat is no longer pink, add the Rotel tomatoes, tomato paste and dried oregano. Cook until mixture is bubbly, then turn off heat and cover the pan.
  5. Use a sharp paring knife to carefully cut out triangle eyes and noses in each of the bell peppers (toss the bits into the pan with the rest of the filling).
  6. Spoon the filling into the peppers. Arrange a slice of cheddar over each pepper, positioning the slices so that they will not melt to cover the eyes on the peppers. Replace the pepper tops and bake (uncovered) for 25 minutes, until heated through and cheese is melted. Serve immediately with brown rice.