Greek Turkey Burgers with Tzadiki Sauce

Topped with fresh veggies, feta, and our delicious homemade tzadiki sauce, these light, juicy turkey burgers are perfect anytime you want a healthy, satisfying meal. Ready in less than 30 minutes!

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• Why You Will Love this Recipe
• What Goes into this Recipe
• How to Make this Recipe
• Expert Tips & FAQs
• Related Recipes
• Greek Turkey Burgers with Spinach, Feta & Tzadiki

Why You Will Love this Recipe

These Greek Turkey Burgers are big on savory Mediterranean flavors! These have become one of our favorite go-to meals; not only do they check all the flavor boxes, but they're also budget-friendly and take only a few minutes to put together.

Start to finish, you can be biting into these tasty Mediterranean-inspired burgers in less than 30 minutes. Even better, the burger patties and tzadiki sauce can be prepped ahead of time, in which case dinner can be on the table in the time it takes to broil the burgers!

What Goes into this Recipe

For this recipe, you will need:

Ingredient Notes & Substitutions

• Ground turkey: This recipe calls for 85% lean ground turkey, which means the turkey contains 15% fat. You can use a lighter ground turkey (i.e., 93% lean/7% fat), but your burgers won’t be as flavorful, and they won’t hold together as well.
  • You can also substitute ground chicken or ground beef in this turkey burger recipe; just pay attention to the fat content. If the meat you use is less than 10% fat, add a tablespoon of olive oil, a ¼-13 cup of bread crumbs, and an additional egg to the mix.
  • After making these burgers with a variety of ground meats, we highly suggest using store-ground over the kind that comes in the round prepackaged chubs-o-meat.
  • The store-ground has more air in it, which will result in a lighter, airier burger. Moreover, we have found that meat packed in chubs is generally of lesser quality, which also directly affects the flavor of the burgers.
• Greek Yogurt: We suggest using full fat greek yogurt. Lower fat yogurts will make for runny tzadiki.
• Spinach: You can use fresh or frozen. If you use frozen, defrost it first, and squeeze out the moisture. 
• Cavenders All-purpose Greek Seasoning: This is one of our favorite everyday seasonings! If you don't have any on hand, you can substitute in ½ teaspoon each: kosher salt, basil, oregano, and freshly ground pepper.

How to Make this Recipe

Make the tzadiki sauce.

This will give the sauce ingredients the maximum amount of time to meld and marry. 

Tzatziki (Greek Cucumber Yogurt Sauce) is a creamy traditional Greek sauce made with cucumbers, fresh garlic, and fresh mint (or dill). Served on the side with many Mediterranean dishes, tzadiki also makes a delicious vegetable dip.

To make tzadiki, first peel, seed, and coarsely grate the cucumber. Collect the grated cucumber in your hands and squeeze out as much of the water as you can.

You can also lay the grated cucumber between paper towels and press the moisture out. It is important to remove as much water possible so you don't end up with weepy cucumber sauce.

Once the cucumber is squeezed out, put it in a medium bowl with the rest of the tzadiki ingredients: plain yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and seasonings. Stir gently to thoroughly combine the sauce ingredients.

Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to serve the turkey burgers. 

Make and form the burgers.

Place turkey burger, chopped spinach, egg, grated onion, chopped garlic, feta crumbles, and seasonings in a large bowl and use your hands to quickly combine, as you would a meatloaf. Mix only until everything is evenly mixed. 

If the mixture seems too loose to easily form into patties, add ¼-⅓ cup bread crumbs and allow the mixture to sit for at least 5 minutes before proceeding.

TIP: It is important to keep burger ingredients cold until you are ready to cook them. This especially applies to the ground turkey.

If the meat starts at room temperature, the heat of your hands will melt the fat as you are working with it, which may result in a dense, dry burger. 

Divide and form the turkey burger mixture into patties about ½-inch thick.

We use a nifty little burger press to make our turkey burger patties, and it makes the process so easy! Not only does it form perfect, round burgers, but it also adds circular impressions that help keep the burgers from shrinking too much or doming up in the middle.

If you don't have a burger press, use this easy dimpling trick to keep your burgers in shape.

Turkey burger patties tend to shrink by about 20-25% when cooked. Make them slightly bigger than the buns you want to use so that burger-and-bun will fit together nicely when they are cooked. 

This turkey burger recipe will make eight regular-size burgers (about 5 ounces each), or 16 slider-size burgers (about 2½ ounces each).

Cook the burgers.

Greek Turkey Burgers can be skillet-fried on the stovetop, grilled on the barbecue, or broiled in the oven.

After much experimenting, we found that broiling is the best way to cook these burgers, with grilling coming in a distant second. 

How to Broil Turkey Burgers in the Oven (Preferred Method)

1. Preheat broiler for 5 minutes. Place burgers on broiling pan. Season lightly with Cavendar's Greek Seasoning, or kosher salt and pepper. 
2. Place pan in preheated oven 4-5 inches below heat. Broil 5-6 minutes on one side. 
3. Remove burgers from the oven and use a spatula or tongs to carefully flip the burgers over. Season again with Cavendar's Greek Seasoning, or kosher salt and pepper. 
4. Return burgers to the oven and broil for an additional 5-7 minutes, or until the tops are richly browned and the internal temperature has reached 165° [74 °C].

Alternate Cooking Methods

Grill on Barbecue

• Grill turkey burgers on your outdoor BBQ as you would any other burger, about 5-6 minutes per side.
• Turkey is a lean meat, so be sure to oil your grill thoroughly before slapping on the burgers.

Fry on Stovetop

• In a large, heavy skillet, fry turkey burgers on the stovetop over medium heat for 5-6 minutes on each side, flipping once. If burgers aren’t done enough in the middle, you can finish them by placing them in 400° oven for 3-4 minutes. 

In all cases, use a meat thermometer to check for doneness. Burgers are done when they reach an internal temperature of 165° [74 °C].

Assemble the burgers.

First, toast your buns. (We like to use homemade buns seasoned with roasted garlic and Cavenders All-purpose Greek Seasoning.) Toasting helps prevent the burger juices from making the bun soggy. 

Layer onto thinly sliced red onion, sliced tomatoes, fresh spinach, and fresh feta crumbles, then top it all off with a generous dollop of creamy tzadiki sauce. 

Expert Tips & FAQs

Serving Suggestions

Make a 5-Minute Easy Greek Side Salad with the leftovers! If you have any leftover cucumber, tomato, onion, and feta after you make your burgers, you have the makings of a quick, easy Greek side salad.

To do this, simply chop and combine the veggies and toss with a drizzles of extra virgin olive oil and a splash or two of balsamic vinegar. Top with crumbled feta.

Stuffed Grape Leaves make a great side for turkey burgers, too!

Change up your burger sauce! Swap the tzadiki out for something completely different, like our Cool Buffalo Blue Cheese Dip or Feta-Dill Sauce!

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