Need Good Dinner Recipes? My Favourite Burger Recipe
In our house, there is not much doubt about what to cook for dinner on summer weekends – weekend dinners mean BBQ. If there is one thing that our kids love it is hamburgers cooked to perfection by yours truly. I cook a lot for the kids, but out of everything I make for them this is the one thing that they ask for on a regular basis. There is nothing fancy about these burgers, in fact, they are pretty easy to make and jazz up to suit you or your kid’s taste.
Ingredients:
About 1 lb to 1.5 lb of medium ground beef
2 eggs
~1/4 cup of ketchup
½ cup of rolled oats
Instructions:
- Beat the eggs together.
- Grind the oats into a breadcrumb like consistency
- Mix all ingredients together, but don’t over mix
- Make patties to suit your kid’s size
Now for the fun
Try mixing multiple meats together. For a lighter burger use ground chicken or ground turkey. Try adding a little bit of healthy fats (a little olive oil or coconut oil) to leaner meats to add a bit more juiciness to them. Ground lamb can give a burger a Mediterranean flavour is you spice it with garlic or rosemary, or use cumin and coriander to get a Middle Eastern flavour.
Want to make them vegetarian? Puree mushrooms into a meat-like consistency with some olive oil and use instead of ground meat. By substituting the ketchup with hoisin sauce (and my favourite Sriracha) you’ll give your burgers an Asian twist.
Grilling tips
Whether cooking on a BBQ or in a pan, make sure you preheat the cooking surface. It’s a good idea to warm the burgers up to room temperature before cooking. Cook for approximately 5 minutes per side, but adjust depending on the size and thickness, just make sure they are cooked through before serving.
Top the burgers with your favourite topping and enjoy.
Quick Tips:
-
Mix up your meat
-
Mix up your flavouring
-
Add healthy oils to lower fat meats
-
Make it veggie!
-
Allow your kids to add their favourite veggie topings
Need lunch ideas for toddlers?
See some ideas for a healthy breakfast for kids
Want other good dinner recipes?
Andrew obtained his PhD from the University of Waterloo in Physiology, a topic not entirely having to do with with kids health specifically. Andrew’s expertise in kids health and raising children stems from his now 4+ years of direct hands on experiences with 4 young boys. My goal is to share some practical advice and some of the little not-so-perfect things my kids have done and how we managed to figure it all out so you can too.
