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I really love salmon, but sometimes, I get sick of the same old same old piece of grilled fish. I bought a giant bag of frozen fillets at Sam's club and decided to make some salmon burgers! I started with this recipe from PaleOMG but modified it a bit based on my own tastes and the ingredients I had on hand.
Before starting the Whole 30, I had never made homemade mayo. I had this thing in my head that homemade mayo must be hard to make or something. Then I saw this recipe from The Healthy Foodie. As she instructs in the post, make sure you use an immersion blender! It's so crazy easy to make, and DELICIOUS. For my second ever batch, I decided to get a little crazy, adding some garlic and the juice of one WHOLE lemon. It turned out to be a little too lemony for most things -- BUT, it was a happy accident as it turned out to be the perfect topping for these salmon burgers.
Cilantro Salmon Burgers
Makes: 5 burgers
Ingredients:
1 lb of salmon fillets, raw, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 egg
1/3 cup almond flour
3 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped (straight from my herb garden ya'll)
/2 red onion, minced
1 Tbsp grainy dijon mustard
1 clove minced garlic (I cheated and used pre-chopped from a jar)
1/2 tsp minced ginger (I cheated and used pre-chopped from a jar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
romaine lettuce leaves (for serving)
homemade garlic lemon mayo (use this recipe, but add some minced garlic, dijon mustard, and use a whole lemon)
Instructions:
Start by throwing the salmon chunks into your food processor and pulsing until it's in very small pieces. If your food processor sucks like mine does, this may require scraping down the sides at least once, and when you dump the salmon into your mixing bowl, you may need to chop up or re-process any large chunks that are left. Or, just run a knife through them.
If, on the other hand, you have a great food processor, you could probably process the salmon partially in there, then add your other ingredients to mix in as well. I will write this post as if you have a crappy food processor like me.
So, as I was saying, transfer the ground salmon to a bowl, then add all of the other ingredients. Mix together with a fork (or your hands). Look at this fresh cilantro from the planter on my deck!
TIP: Most recipes will tell you to beat the egg before adding it to the bowl. You all know I'm a lazy cook and would rather not dirty more dishes than absolutely necessary -- SO... just crack the egg into the side of the bowl and whisk it up with a fork before combining with the other ingredients.
This burger mix is softer than your typical burger mix. Mushier, you might say. So, to form them into patties, I got a little help from plastic wrap. First, right in the bowl, I scooped the mixture into 5 salmon blobs. Then, for each burger, I laid out a square of Sarah wrap, scooped 1/5th of the salmon mixture into the center, and folded up the edges (about 5 folds, so they were kind of pentagon burgers).
TIP: At this point, you can freeze the burgers, OR cook them!
In a skillet over medium heat, grill each burger for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until cooked through.
TIP: You can also cook these on the grill, but I didn't trust these to stick together, so I sprayed a sheet of aluminum foil, placed it on the grill grates, and grilled the burgers on that.
To serve, place two romaine lettuce leaves together (opposite directions). Place a burger patty on one end, top with some garlic lemon mayo, and fold the lettuce in half to make a "bun."