Healthy Homemade Burgers

Healthy food (tayib - pure- food) doesn’t have to be boring.

Sometimes, a few tweaks can turn an unhealthy fast food into a meal that is wholesome and nutritionally dense (or at the very least, healthier than the original).

Let’s take the elements of a burger and see how we can make a healthier version.

Burger Patties

Traditional processed burger patties can be swapped out for:

• grass fed and hormone free patties (we like the ones from LA Farms); or

• homemade patties (even if not grass fed, homemade patties mean that you know exactly what is in your meat and you can make burger patties with clean ingredients. Some ground beef and a few simple spices is all you need. You could even speak to your butcher about making cleaner burger patties for you.); or

• free range chicken fillet for chicken burgers. If you marinate these, make sure that you use spices that don’t have colourants, preservatives, refined sugar etc.

Burger Buns

Traditional store bought burger buns that contain preservatives can be swapped out for:

• sourdough buns (sourdough tends to be lower in gluten and healthier overall), either homemade or bought from a health store or bakery; or

• homemade buns with clean ingredients made from non-gmo/pesticide free stoneground flour (you may find bakery or health store where you can buy buns like this); or

• Keto or paleo buns (either bought or homemade)

Or…you could forgo the buns completely and use lettuce or nothing at all.

Burger Toppings

Here are some topping options that can add interest and flavour, and even nutritional benefits to your burger:

• Swap processed cheese slices for real cheese (even better if you can find grass fed/raw cheese)

• Veggies (like mushrooms, lettuce, tomatoes).

• Guacamole (simply smash some avo with lemon juice and salt).

• Sauerkraut (a fermented food that will benefit your gut).

• An egg! Fried in ghee/butter/coconut oil/avo oil/olive oil.

• Pesto (with no preservatives or refined sugar).

Condiments and Sauces

Traditionally you may put mayo, tomato sauce, mustard etc on your burger.

The best swap is homemade mayo and tomato sauce or other homemade sauces/condiments like pesto – you can control the ingredients and don’t need preservatives.

Second best (for those of us in a season of life where we don’t have time or energy to make things from scratch) would be store bought healthier options (that don’t have refined sugars or inflammatory oils, although some do contain preservatives). Some of the sauces we use at this point in time are:

• Carb smart Tomato Sauce
• Carb Smart Sweet Chilli Sauce
• Carbclever Mayo (from Woolworths)
• Good Life Organic Mustard (this is a completely clean condiment)
• Carb Smart Siracha Mayo

I hope that this gives you an idea of how you can easily start moving towards healthier and more tayib meals at home. It doesn’t have to be all the things all at once – incremental changes are often more sustainable in the long run!

[Also – as a disclaimer, although the above is how I tweak our burger nights at home, this doesn’t mean we never eat a “normal burger”. A completely 100% tayib diet is not practical or sustainable for us at the moment, so we aim for 80/20. I try to keep what we eat at home as clean as I can, so that our primary diet is as tayib as possible. When we eat out, it isn’t always possible to adhere to tayib standards, and we’re okay with that.]