Greetings from San Diego! I’ve escaped the 110°F+ temps of Arizona for slightly cooler weather, beach time, and a couple of days at Legoland this week. We stayed at a cute, cottage Airbnb with a fully-stocked kitchen for the first half of our trip, so I was still able to cook a small amount, which is always nice.
The second half (today and yesterday), we’ve spent completely immersed in everything Legoland. 🤪 It’s a fun place with much shorter lines than what you’d expect at Disneyland, much fewer crowds (even in the summer), and a cool aquarium and water park, too.
Turkey burger bowl inspiration
Since we wanted to keep the eating out to a minimum on this trip, I cooked dinner a couple of times at the Airbnb. We had a great whole foods store within walking distance and I had packed a few cooking essentials for the trip, but my main goal was to make dinner extra simple and easy.
I’ve been trying to incorporate more ground turkey into our dinner rotation (I think it all started with this recipe for turkey meatballs in a curry sauce ). Ground turkey has the potential to easily turn somewhat bland and dry, and after experimenting a lot with turkey burgers, turkey meatloaf, turkey meatballs and Asian-inspired turkey lettuce wraps, I’ve found a few tricks that can really make a difference.
One of the meals we had this week at the Airbnb was inspired by the trip: a classic, California-style turkey burger (burger bowl style) with a little bit of a spicy spin, loaded with bacon, red onion, avocado, pepper jack cheese and a low-carb, store-bought chipotle dip (I had some of the chipotle Bitchin’ sauce on hand which was the perfect topping for all of this goodness). The meal is relaxed and flavorful and light, and ready in under 30 minutes.
It’s also low carb, gluten and grain free, and a keto-friendly meal that is easy to customize when it comes to toppings. A quick dinner that checks all the boxes and offers a decent amount of protein, too!
California-style turkey burger bowls (low carb, keto-friendly)
We had these with roasted sweet potato wedges and it was perfect after a day of light shopping and the beach. If I can make these on vacation, I’m 100% certain you can do it in under 30 minutes from your own kitchen. :) They’re just that easy.
I kept thinking how awesome they would be with a few jalapeños, and even better with everything tucked in between a couple of slices of a really good sourdough. Next time.
As always, I’m including different serving ideas as well as a ton of notes for substitutions and variations below, so there’s a turkey burger for all eaters.
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