Teriyaki Turkey Burgers

"I paid the bank note, the car note, an' yes, I paid the 'phone bill too.
An' then I turned around an' I found that the house note's due.
Well, I'd love to take you out like I said I would, honey,
But there's too much month at the end of the money."

If you listen to country music, like I do, you might be familiar with that song by Marty Stuart. I used to feel like there was "too much month at the end of the money" pretty frequently, but now that the husband and I have been paying off our debt and working with a monthly budget, I no longer worry about stretching our pay checks to the end of the month. I know we will have enough to pay all the bills, save, and have some fun money, no problem.

Except this month we didn't do such a great job sticking to the budget. And now we're about a week away from the end of the month and the bank account is running on empty. So if I want to put gas in my car in order to commute to work, I can't spend any money on groceries. Time to be creative! I consider my kitchen to be "empty" if I can't get to the grocery store twice a month, and while we may be severely lacking fresh vegetables, we are far from without food. I knew we had a half-full jar of pineapple teriyaki sauce in the fridge, a can of pineapple rings in the pantry, and lots of ground turkey in the freezer, so threw these ingredients together and created a teriyaki burger. The husband and I both love burgers, and he loves pineapple--in fact, he always orders the teriyaki burger when we go to Islands--so I knew this would be a hit. And I was right!

We used whole wheat buns, but we also like sandwich thins when we want to save some calories. I served these burgers with homemade fries.


Teriyaki Turkey Burgers
Source: A Cooking in Cucamonga Original
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey
1 20 ounce can pineapple rings
3 Tablespoons pineapple teriyaki, plus more for dressing your burger
hamburger buns
sharp cheddar cheese, if desired

Directions

Prepare a charcoal grill, or heat a grill pan.

Dice two pineapple rings and mix into the ground turkey, along with the pineapple teriyaki sauce.

Form the meat into even-sized patties (I made 6 small patties), making sure the middles are not much thicker than the edges.

Grill the patties on each side about 4 minutes, or until cooked all the way through. Grill the remaining pineapple rings for about 2-3 minutes per side.

Toast the buns while the meat is cooking. Top each bun with a patty, a thin slice of cheese, a pineapple ring, and a drizzle of pineapple teriyaki.

Enjoy!