Sliders are fun to eat because they are cute, small and won’t ruin your diet. I prefer to use turkey when I am making recipes with ground meat because I like the taste and the leaner meat, which results in less calories. The difficulty is in ensuring not to overcook it though because overcooked turkey can be dried out and tasteless. It helps if you use regular ground turkey and not breast meat because the white meat tends to dry out the most. It also helps to moisten your ground turkey with other ingredients that can add to both flavor and moisture. Three additional keys to success are: 1) don’t over mix the ground meat 2) don’t press your burgers 3) turn only once
You won’t have any of those problems with this recipe because it is bursting with flavor from the herbs and spices mixed into the burgers and in the carrot slaw that accompanies it. The slider recipe calls for a mixture of fresh ginger, mint, cumin and harissa – a Moroccan red pepper sauce that you can purchase or make at home. I like “Mina Harissa Spicy Traditional Moroccan Red Pepper Sauce” purchased in a jar at specialty shops or on Amazon. You can find it in my Amazon aStore on my site. There is also a recipe for making your own at the kitchn website.
What really catapults these sliders is the carrot slaw on top. It is simply julienned carrots seasoned with a hint of sugar, fresh squeezed lemon juice, mint and the most important part – whole cumin seed. Amazing how this little mixture marries so well with the burgers. Topped with some crumbled feta cheese, they are the bomb!
To julienne the carrots, I use this super cool tool that I recently purchased, the “Kinpira Julienne Peeler.” I have two different mandolins, but I find that it is difficult to julienne smaller vegetables with them. I just love my Talley Farms carrots as they taste like what a real carrot should taste like! They are smaller in size with lots of gorgeous green carrot tops on them. Not like the bite sized carrots packed in water that they sell in bags or the huge carrots that are used to feed horses which have almost no true carrot flavor at all. This tool works incredibly well when you need to julienne a smaller vegetable. It is no bigger than a regular potato peeler and is a great addition to your kitchen tool box.
Moroccan Turkey Sliders with Carrot Slaw & Feta
Serves 4
- 1 1/4 lb. ground turkey (not white meat)
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, grated on the large holes of a box grater
- 3 Tbs. chopped fresh mint, separated
- 1 Tbs. harissa
- 1-1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 1-1/2 tsp. finely grated fresh ginger
- Kosher salt
- 6 small to medium carrots, grated on the large holes of a box grater or cut into thin strips with a julienne peeler
- 1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice; more to taste
- 1 tsp. granulated sugar
- 1 tsp. cumin seed
- 8 slider buns
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta
- Vegetable oil for grilling
- Prepare a medium (350°F to 375°F) gas or charcoal grill fire.
- With your hands, gently mix the chicken, onion, 1 Tbs. of the mint, the harissa, ground cumin, ginger, and 3/4 tsp. salt in a large bowl. With wet hands, form into four 1/2-inch-thick patties.
- Toss the remaining 2 Tbs. mint with the carrots, lemon juice, sugar, cumin seed, and 1/4 tsp. salt. Season to taste with more lemon juice and salt.
- Oil the grill grate and grill the burgers, flipping once, until cooked through (165°F), 8 to 10 minutes total. Serve the burgers in the pitas along with the feta and slaw.
- When cooking turkey burgers, take care not to overcook them so they remain moist and flavorful.
- I like to lightly butter the inside of the buns and toast them on the grill before plating the sliders.
(click here) for printable recipe