Greekburgers are our family’s summer favorite and in fact we kicked off our summer grilling season with them. Greekburgers are hamburgers inspired by Greek cooking and filled with yummy tzatziki dip and inside a pita pocket. Greek style hamburgers are the perfect way to give a new twist for same old hamburgers you’ve been flipping every summer. If you are a serious Greek food lover, please remember that this is still more of a hamburger than anything else. This is a great dish for especially kids who might not be that familiar with Greek food yet. I would like to think this is the healthier hamburger too. You will have to prepare the Greek yogurt dip Tzatziki for these hamburgers as well, so remember to check out the Tzatziki recipe before heading out to buy ingredients for the Greekburgers!
Greekburgers Recipe
This makes 6 hamburgers Ingredients: 1 lbs of lean ground beef (I buy 92-95% lean) 1/3 red onion (balsamic vinegar) chopped curly parsley Condiments: 6 whole grain pita pockets Feta cheese sliced 2 tomatoes 1/2 English cucumber sliced lettuce tzatziki Before preparing the hamburgers, make the tzatziki, see the recipe and instructions here. 1. Chop the red onion small, if you want you can also soak the chopped red onion in balsamic onion for 15-30 minutes to give the hamburger meat even more flavor and moisture. Chop the curly parsley. 2. Split the ground beef in 6 parts and start forming the hamburger patties. Add the onions and parsley as you are forming the patties.
3. Put the pita pockets inside foil and warm them either on the grill or in the oven inside the foil.
4. Slice the cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta cheese and wash the lettuce and have everything ready for the hamburgers.
5. Grill the hamburgers on a grill as any other hamburger patty. Note: don’t press the meat down with a spatula while cooking, it will make it dry.
6. Assemble the Greekburgers: cut the pita pocket open, add lettuce, tomatoes, English cucumber, the hamburger patty and top it with plenty of Tzatziki!
Note: we made sliced potatoes with garlic and cooked them on the grill in a foil and sliced mushrooms with onions to go with the Greekburgers. They were yummy, but they didn’t look very pretty for the pictures…
I bet these would be great with ground lamb, too.
My Greek brother-in-law makes these with 1/2 ground lamb and 1/2 lean ground beef (but not too lean so the hamburger isn’t too dry).