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Forget fast-food restaurants–you can make healthy burgers quickly in your own home. If you haven’t planned ahead, grass-fed and/or organic beef, chicken, lamb, or turkey are great to have on hand. Louise loves to buy ground meat or poultry, make it into patties, and put it in her freezer, so she can take a patty or two out at a time to thaw and serve. This is a great way to make sure you always have the option of a burger, even if you couldn’t get to the grocery store!

Can I cook a frozen meat patty? Yes, you can. Put about 1" water or bone broth into your skillet and set your stove burner to low. Add in the frozen patty and allow it to slow cook. Once it is mostly thawed, you can add some healthy fat, like raw butter, or continue to cook the burger in water or bone broth. Bone broth is a wonderful way to add flavor to your burger!

What about the bun? Since most buns are made of flour that is hard on the digestive system, we recommend eating your burger without a bun. Instead, consider pairing it with our Grain-Free, Gluten-Free Rosemary Bread (see recipe later in the chapter) or putting it on top of a salad. Both options make for better digestion and food combining.

1 lb. ground meat makes about 4–6 burgers. Shape your meat into patties.

Put your skillet on low heat and add either bone broth or a healthy cooking fat, like raw butter, ghee, duck fat (wonderful for lamb burgers), or beef tallow, and let it melt onto the skillet.

Add herbs or spices of your choice. Some great options are: ¼ tsp. ground black pepper with ½ tsp. thyme, or ½ tsp. turmeric and ¼ tsp. cardamom or fennel. Allow the herbs and spices to warm in the bone broth or oil to release their medicinal properties.

Add the patties and cook on low or medium low, turning them when they lift easily from the pan with a spatula. As the meat cooks, it will shrink and plump a bit. When you touch it in the center, it will be a little bouncy and firm when it’s done .

We actually like to put a knife or the edge of the spatula into the meat to see how ready it is. When it’s cooked on the outside and still a little pink inside (rare), we take it off the heat and serve. If you like it cooked a bit more, keep checking the inside of the patty until it’s done to your liking. (Keep in mind that meat cooked more rare is easier to digest.) This will take 5–10 minutes on low heat, which is a healthier way to cook meat. Allow more time for the extra steps above if you’re starting with a frozen patty.

Serve with cultured vegetables, a salad, and mustard. (Look for a mustard made with apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar. Whole Foods 365 brand has an organic German mustard made with apple cider vinegar and horseradish that tastes great with burgers!) If you must have bread with your burger, our Grain-Free, Gluten-Free “Rye” Bread and Rosemary Bread recipes are great options. They combine well with meat from a food-combining perspective, and while they’re not going to hold your burger the way a bun does, they can be eaten with it on the side or with knife and fork.