BBQ Pork Burgers with Slaw

BBQ Pork Burgers

I found this recipe on Epicurious.com a couple of years back and it's tasty. The recipe calls for bottled BBQ sauce, which goes against the Clean Eating philosophy but I found one with somewhat okay ingredients. What I need to do is make a batch myself and keep it handy. Alas….

Water, Tomato Paste, Sugar, Distilled Vinegar, Molasses, Tapioca Dextrin, Salt, Brown Sugar, Spices, Corn Starch, Contains Less than 0.5% of: *Onion, Paprika, *Garlic, Chili Powder, Natural Smoke Flavor, Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Citric Acid, Corn Syrup, Tamarind, Natural Flavors.

*Dried

I changed the recipe slightly to meet my needs. 

• 1 bag pre-made slaw mix

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise

• 1 tablespoon milk

• 1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons white-wine vinegar, divided

• 1/2 cup bottled tomato-based barbecue sauce

• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder

• 1 1/2 pounds ground pork

• 4 whole wheat kaiser or soft rolls
• 
  
• Mix the mayonnaise, milk, vinegar together and mix into slaw mix. Set aside.
• 
  
• Mix ground pork with sauce and chili powder.  Make into patties and grill or cook stove top.  Baste burgers with more BBQ sauce once cooked.
• 
  
• 
  
• As you can see, I didn't make my patties big enough for the giant buns! And I should have toasted the buns but my child was fussy and the dogs were carrying on so I had to make due. I like these but I had forgotten that the meat can be a little bit dry. I think I'll try it again with ground beef.
• 
  
• 
  

Salsa Burgers

This is one of the best burgers I've ever had. At least one that I've made.  I found the recipe in Clean Eating Magazine July 2011.

1 lb lean ground beef
1/3 cup fresh pico de gallo or salsa, well drained (Recipe for pico de gallo follows)
1/4 tea. Kosher salt
1/4 tea. pepper
1 small avocado, roughly chopped
1/4 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 tbl chopped fresh cilantro
2 tea fresh lime juice
1/4 tea garlic powder
multigrain hamburger buns

For pico de gallo I used:
1 small tomato, seeded and chopped
1 small jalapeño, seeded and chopped
1/2 small yellow onion, chopped
a small handful of cilantro leaves
salt and pepper
Juice from 1 small lime.

I put all of the pico de gallo ingredients into a food processor and chopped until fine.

For the burgers:

Mix the ground beef with the well drained pico de gallo, salt and pepper. I squeezed as much liquid out as I could before adding it to the meat. Make into 4 patties and either grill or broil until done.  

While the burgers are cooking make the guacamole.  Mash the avocado, add red bell pepper, cilantro, lime juice, garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir to combine. 

The magazine suggests using plain Greek yogurt as a condiment but I went with regular mayonnaise.  It wasn't necessary. The avocado spread was plenty creamy and SO flavorful. 

The burgers were outstanding. Full of flavor and not a bit too try, which often happens to my burgers often.