Teriyaki Pineapple Turkey Burgers

In the last 9 months, I have lived in 4 different apartments/houses, in 3 different cities, in 2 different states. I’ve changed my address over and over, and I’m still getting letters with 3 separate yellow address stickies layered on top of each other. I started getting sick of changing the addresses on all my magazines, so I just let all of my subscriptions run out. Which is sad, because I used to get about 6 different food magazines that I really enjoyed reading.

Well, now that we’re living somewhere semi-permanently (if 7 months can be considered semi-permanent), I decided to start subscribing again. I didn’t want to go crazy and have to change a zillion addresses when we move again, so I started small with one magazine.

But I may have made a mistake. Instead of re-subscribing to one of my old favorites (Rachel Ray and Cooking Light are definitely the best), I decided to try out something new:

Food Network Magazine

My first issue came last week, and after flipping through it, I was a bit disappointed. I didn’t see a single Food Network recipe that caught my eye. I’m hoping it’s just a fluke and next month I’ll want to make every single one.

The magazine wasn’t a total bust though. I did see ONE recipe I wanted to make… but guess what? It was in an ad! For Dole Pineapple! But a recipe is a recipe, no matter where it comes from, so I don’t discriminate.

Teriyaki Pineapple Turkey Burgers

(from Dole)

makes 8 burgers

1 20 oz. can pineapple slices
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
2 lbs. ground turkey
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 egg (not necessary, but I used one)
8 whole wheat burger buns
8 slices cheddar cheese
pickled jalapenos (optional, but highly recommended)

Drain the pineapple, reserving half a cup of the juice. Mix the juice with teriyaki sauce.

Mix together turkey, ginger, bread crumbs, 1/4 of the teriyaki mix, and egg, if using. The egg wasn’t in the original recipe, but they help the patties stick together, so I threw one in. I used regular breadcrumbs, but if you don’t live in the middle of nowhere where panko doesn’t exist… use it.

Form the meat into 8 patties. I used a half cup measuring cup to scoop them and it worked perfectly. (By the way, if you’re curious, I use half 93/7 and half 97/3 turkey. That way it’s pretty healthy, but still juicy and flavorful. If you’re trying to save money, the 93/7 is about half the price).

Grill the burgers, brushing with remaining teriyaki mixture, until browned and cooked through.

Grill the pineapple slices until golden brown.

Top the burgers with cheese, pineapple and jalapenos and serve on buns. I served mine with baked sweet potato fries, tossed in salt, paprika, cumin, chili powder, curry powder, cinnamon and cayenne. Basically the entire spice cabinet.

These were really good! Way to go, Dole! As always, I loved the sweet and savory combo. Nick really liked the burgers too. I decided that I’m a huge fan of turkey burgers, and stated that we should eat them more often. Nick agreed. Less steak, more turkey burgers? Well, we’ll see…