What’s this? Another post just a day after the last one! It’s a rare thing for me to blog more than once a week these day but I took a notion for homemade burgers today and needed to share this amazing recipe with everyone.

This meal is pretty cheap and rather healthy (considering its a burger). My tummy was rumbling so I didn’t have time to peel potatoes and make some wedges or chips but roasted beetroot was a far tastier side. Its obvious from the picture were the ‘pink salad’ part comes from (the beetroot and my delicious red cabbage coleslaw) but why blue? I hear you ask! You’ll have to read on to find out…

For the coleslaw you will need:

half a small red cabbage

4 medium sized carrots.

75ml of reduced fat mayonnaise

1tbsp of French mustard

a small squeeze of lemon juice

For the patties:

200g of lean mince beef (to make two burgers)

1tbsp of wholegrain mustard

10g of Blue Stilton (hurrah, the ‘blue burger’ secret is revealed)

1 tbsp of corn flour

salt

pepper

To serve:

1 red onion

Gluten free burger baps

Some baby leaf salad

3 pre-packed whole beetroot

2 flat mushrooms

You can make your coleslaw in advance as it’ll keep for a few days in the fridge and is lovely in sandwiches or as a side to lots of different dishes. Its very very simple to make. Simply grate the red cabbage (the outer layer always seems too tough to grate so you can dispose of that) and the carrots in to a bowl, add your mayo, mustard and lemon juice and then stir together. You may need to add more mayo depending on how creamy you like your coleslaw. Stick in the fridge until you’re ready to serve and get started on your patties.

In a bowl mix together the mince, mustard, corn flour and crumble in the Stilton. Mould in to two patties. I made these rather thick as I like a big patty but if you want thin burgers don’t use as much mince.

Before you cook the burgers, chop up the beetroot in to similar sized chunks and place in a roasting dish in the oven at around 175 degrees.

Fry the burgers in a pan with about a tbsp of oil. Make sure the burgers don’t fall apart as your flipping them. This has happened to me in the past. My mum puts a raw egg into her mixture in order to bind the burgers together but I find the corn flour usually acts as a good binding agent.

Cut the stem off your flat mushroom and after the burgers have been cooking for ten minutes add it to the pan.

About 5 minutes before the burgers are cooked (they should take about 20 minutes to cook them until the meat is tender but leave for longer if you like them well done) add the red onion to the pan. You may need to add a bit more olive oil at this point as the mushroom might have soaked most of it up.

Cut the burger baps in half before you stick them in the oven for a few minutes (again I used the Sainsbury’s GF 79p rolls and I find these always should be cooked slightly in the oven before eating).

Once everything is cooked you can assemble your burger to your liking. I put the patty on the bottom, then sprinkled over some stilton, added the mushroom on top and then the red onions.

There was no need for mayo or ketchup as this burger was flavoursome enough and I added some of my coleslaw as I was eating it.

Serve with the beetroot, salad and coleslaw.

I was nursing a serious food baby after eating this burger so I’m very glad I didn’t put chips on the side. The beetroot, mustard and Stilton really complimented each other too and I didn’t feel like I’d eaten a massive pile of junk food either.

How do you make homemade burgers and what untraditional sides do you like to put with them?

Dom x