Robin Benzle food and travel

Pesto Burgers

After I tried a pesto burger, I decided it would be difficult to eat a burger any other way. It’s that good. The taste of lean, cooked beef with the flavors of fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts and melted Parmesan cheese…you don’t even need ketchup on it.
For each 1/3-pound burger, you’ll need 1 to 1 ½ tablespoons of pesto.
Place good, lean ground sirloin in a bowl and add appropriate amount of pesto. Mix gently with hands – don’t over mix or your burgers will be dry. Grill or pan fry until done. Enjoy in a bun with a thin slice of tomato, or one of my favorite way to serve burgers:
Note: You can use pesto from a jar or make my recipe:

Ingredients

2 cups gently packed fresh basil leaves
½ cup pine nuts
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
About ½ cup extra virgin olive oil

The Recipe

In a food processor, chop basil until fine. Add pine nuts, cheese, garlic and salt and process until like a thick paste. With processor running, slowly pour in olive oil until mixture is a good consistency, kind of like a dip. Extra pesto can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, or frozen for several months.