Guest Recipe: Tom's Gluten-free Greek Lamb Burgers

While trips abroad this summer might still have a question mark hanging over them, why not bring a taste of the Med into your back garden with a batch of Tom’s juicy Greek Lamb Burgers?

Using some blitzed-up porridge oats in place of breadcrumbs, these burgers are gluten-free and ever-so moreish. Grilled above the smoke of smouldering charcoal, they come alive and bring instant summer sunshine to any BBQ – even when the British summer sun fails us...

• Prep Time: 10 minutes + 1 hour rest
• Cook Time: 8 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour and 18 minutes

Serves: 8

Category: Lamb,Lunch,Dinner

Ingredients

• 500g 20% lamb mince
• 225g halloumi
• 1 medium red onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 50g porridge oats
• 1 handful fresh mint
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 large pinch of ground white pepper
• 1 large pinch of salt flakes
• Grated zest of 1 lemon

Method

1. To begin, blitz the porridge oats up in a food processor with the dried oregano, cumin and coriander to form a fine powder. Sprinkle this over the lamb mince in a large bowl.
2. Finely chop the red onion and crush the garlic. Coarsely grate the halloumi and finely chop up the fresh mint. 
3. Pop all of this into the bowl alongside the mince before adding the finely grated zest of a lemon and the salt and pepper. 
4. Use your hands to squidge all the ingredients together, ensuring everything is evenly combined. Form the mix into a ball and cover before popping it into the fridge to rest for around 1 hour – or even overnight.
5. When ready to make the burgers, pop the ball of mixture onto a board. Squish the ball down slightly to resemble the shape of a cake before cutting into eight even-sized slices. Using slightly damp hands, bring each slice together into a burger patty shape and pop to one side.
6. To cook, brush each burger with a little olive oil before grilling on a barbecue for 4 minutes each side. You can also grill the burgers in a preheated medium-hot grill in the kitchen if you wish – again around 4 minutes each side.
7. Check that the burgers are cooked thoroughly before serving. I like to eat mine in brioche burger buns, sandwiched with some houmous, lettuce leaves and sundried tomatoes.

Tom Frizell-Shackley is a food writer, recipe developer and freelance PR consultant, based in the North of England. He lives with his partner, son and three spaniels. Since 2019, he has published recipes and kitchen tips for his Kitchen Notes food blog.