Bun­less Rice Stuff­ing Burgers

If you love stuff­ing, then you’ll love these bun­less rice stuff­ing burg­ers. They’re a 50/​50 mix of extra lean ground beef and rice, min­gled with lots of fresh chopped herbs for a low-​calorie fla­vor booster. I browned them in a pan, then popped in the oven to fin­ish — it’s rain­ing cats and dogs here this week, and I didn’t want to get soak­ing wet in the name of barbecuing.

See the lit­tle green chopped things? That’s chives — the best thing of early sum­mer, and one of my favorite things to eat grow­ing up. I’d sprin­kle chives on crusty bread with but­ter and salt, and I do that to this day, actu­ally. And when chives weren’t in sea­son, then bread with but­ter and salt was just fine. It was a source of some embar­rass­ment to my mom, since I’d ask for bread with but­ter and salt we vis­ited peo­ple, declin­ing the usual fix­ings like ham…as though we didn’t have it at home. “Oh, take some ham on your bread, you poor child..” I grow my own chives now, and I never liked Pol­ish ham.

If you don’t have chives, you can sub­sti­tute green onions, they will just taste sharper and more, well, oniony. Also, use brown rice for the mix if you pre­fer — I hap­pened to have an insane crav­ing for white bas­mati rice last night, so I went with that. Here the burg­ers in the pan, right before being popped into the oven — notice how lit­tle oil they need to brown.

Okay, about the bun­less thing — it’s noth­ing crazy. It just means I served them on a plate along­side a heap of steamed veg­gies and a side of avo­cado and greek yogurt. But if you crave a bun, you know what to do!

Bun­less Rice Stuff­ing Burgers

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Course Burgers, Main Course

Ingredients

  

• one part extra lean ground beef one part cooked rice
• fresh chopped chives sub­sti­tute spring onions if unavailable
• fresh chopped thyme
• fresh chopped oregano
• diced yel­low pepper
• finely chopped onion
• salt and pepper
• olive oil for frying

Instructions

 

• Pre­heat the oven to 375F. Mix together all ingre­di­ents and shape into palm-​sized pat­ties about ¼ inch thick.
• Warm up a lit­tle bit of olive oil in an oven­proof skil­let and work in batches to brown the pat­ties on both sides. Place the skil­let in the oven and bake for 15 – 20 min­utes, until no longer pink inside. Do not overcook.

Keyword Burgers, rice