Italian Meatball Burgers

This recipe is one off my "to try" list for the August issue of Cooking Light. Putting an Italian spin on a plain old ground beef burger, this burger calls for a bit of Italian sausage mixed in, along with a few other herbs and spices. The good, old American stand-bys of ketchup and American cheese are replaced with marinara sauce and fresh mozzarella.

Italian Meatball Burgers

I ended up using regular Italian sausage in place of turkey sausage as I have not yet found a turkey sausage that I'm thrilled with here. This upped the fat content a bit, of course, but certainly didn't hurt the flavor. Though I would have loved to use fresh mozzarella, we chose to use up some provolone we already had on hand and, of course, we used a bit of homemade marinara in place of store-bought.

These burgers were a hit with everyone at the table. I think it's a great way to get that Italian sausage flavor without all of the fat that isn't so great. At the same time, it the sausage flavoring isn't so overwhelming that you forget you're eating a hamburger either.

These go together very easily, making for a quick dinner that offers a little more than the average burger. We made and cooked up all 6 burgers and used the leftovers for a yummy lunch the next day.