Say that five times fast. Now, look at this picture and say it with me…..”yyyyyuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm.”

How much do you want to eat this RIGHT NOW? Heck I want to eat it right now and I just had it for dinner yesterday. Alright, alright, enough tooting my own horn. I actually first had this idea two weeks ago, when I decided to make it for my birthday celebration dinner. I love it when I have genius ideas (doesn’t really happen all that often….). I based this recipe (very loosely) off of my Quinoa Burgers recipe. Then I decided to make a sort of spicy mayo to top the burgers. And then I remembered that I’m really not a huge fan of mayo, so I decided to go with sour cream instead (with siracha for bit of a kick). And then, even though I like the taste of hot and spicy things, let’s face it, I’m actually a wimp, so I knew I would need something cool to take the edge of my special spicy sauce, and of course cool, creamy slices of avocado were just the right answer. And thus, the amazing Turkey and Black Bean Burger with Avocado Slices and Special Spicy Sauce was born. And what a glorious birth it was. (That sounded weird when talking about food so instead let’s go with….) And it was amazing.

Okay, enough with the long-winded introduction. Here’s how you can make and savor these juicy burgers for yourself:

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground turkey (I used 93/7)

3/4 cup reduced fat, shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup cottage cheese (because you know I love adding cottage cheese to everything)

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed with cold water (to get rid of extra sodium)

8-10 baby carrots (8 if bigger carrots, 10 if they’re kinda scrawny), shredded in a food processor

2 green onions, diced up real nice

1 egg

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1 avocado for slicing

8 whole wheat burger buns

Special Spicy Sauce (recipe below)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the turkey and cheeses. After you have drained and rinsed your black beans, use a mallet of some sort of mash them up. They don’t need to be super mashed, just enough to make it more like a chunky bean paste (doesn’t that sound appetizing?) than individual beans. Then, add your chunky bean paste to the big bowl. Add in the shredded carrots (note: you can shred carrots by hand or buy already shredded carrots, but I think it works best in a food processor because it gets the carrots into much smaller pieces so it stays a lot better in the burger). Add in the diced onion, the egg, and the 3 spices.



Then, give it a good stir until you get it all mixed together really well.

2. Using either a special burger maker thingy (very technical term) or your hands, carefully shape the patties. I got 8 burgers out of this using my special burger maker thingy:

3. You can cook these right away or you can keep them in the fridge for a day or two until you’re ready, which makes these a great food to prep ahead of time for a cookout or get together. You can cook them on the grill or on the stove. If you cook them on them on the grill, I’ll warn you to be careful with them, as they fall apart kind of easily. If cooking on the stove, heat up a non-stick pan over medium heat and spray with non-stick spray. Then, plop a burger on the skillet and cover with a lid. Mine took about 7 minutes on each side, but this will vary. Just keep an eye on them while you’re cooking and be careful when flipping them, because as mentioned, sometimes they don’t want to hold their shape.

4. Then, you stick it on a bun and top with sliced avocados and the Special Spicy Sauce (recipe below).

Here’s how you make the super special (and super easy) Spicy Sauce:

Ingredients:

1 cup low fat or fat free sour cream

2 Tbsp siracha (or another hot sauce will work too)

1 lime, juiced

2 Tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro

Method:

1. Mix everything in a bowl. You’re done!

And now you have this awesome burger sauce. PS. If you like spicy things, you will also enjoy this sauce on other foods such as: any other foods.

One more picture just for fun….

Because I know some people are interested in the nutrition info of my foods, I’m going to try to start including them more.

For just the burger (if you made 8 burgers with this recipe):

It is roughly: 260 calories, 10 g CHO, 11 g FAT, 29 g PRO per burger

However, that’s using raw ground turkey, so it doesn’t account for the fat that is lost in cooking, so it’s likely even lower in calories.

The burger with the bun:

380 kcal, 32 g CHO, 13 g FAT, and 33 g PRO

Add up the avocado and spicy sauce on your own if you want.

A fourth of an avocado alone is about 60 kcal, 4 g CHO, 6 g FAT, and 2 g PRO

Two Tbsp of fat free sour cream (which is mostly what has kcal in the sauce) is about 25 kcal and 1 g CHO.

Okay, so you guys tell me, is the nutritional info helpful?

Should I try to do that more often?

Also, what is your favorite kind of burger? This might be my new favorite.

And just because it’s been awhile since I posted something fuzzy and adorable, look who kept me company while I wrote today’s post:

Little Nelson is super precious.

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