The pleasant weather outside brings lots of great spring and summer food, especially food cooked on the grill. One of the favorite types of grill food is the hamburger. It used to be that hamburger in itself was frugal, but that is no longer the case. Exotic ingredients and fixings, preformed burgers that have less actual meat in them and the rising cost of beef have all made having a burger almost a luxury these days.
Here are some ideas on how to make your burgers frugal, and eat them frugally, too.
Avoid the preformed burgers, especially the ones that are frozen. As mentioned above, they generally contain a lot of fillers and less meat that you might think. If you want to stretch a burger with fillers, you might as well do it yourself. You’ll get better ingredients, less chemicals and more meat for your money.
Speaking of stretching burgers. If you mix the minced meat with a number of delicious extras, you can effectively stretch the meat, and serve more burgers for the same amount of money. Some fillers that work well include bread crumbs and egg, stuffing mix with egg and milk or shredded potato. In most cases, you can go to half filler and half minced meat and still have yummy burgers.
Try turkey burgers. Ground turkey is still less expensive than is ground beef, and to tell you the truth, I actually prefer burgers made with ground turkey. Provided that the burgers aren’t overcooked, the ground turkey burgers are very delicious. They are also leaner and healthier than ground beef burgers.
You can also try veggie burgers. Again, stay away from the preformed burgers, which can be expensive and tasteless. Instead, make your own out of lentils or other beans. Rice is a great addition to veggie burgers, as well.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
Related Articles:
Four Delicious Ways to Stretch a Meat-loaf