If you aren’t willing to eat smaller portions of beef or turkey, you can always eat ostrich. A 8oz cooked ostrich burger only has 60 mg of cholesterol and 1g of Saturated fat, and it tastes like beef!!! You could probably eat a 1lb ostrich burger and not break your diet, as long as you had 520 calories to spare.

To spruce up any sort of ground meat, I add plenty of dried spices. Whatever I can find in the spice rack, or from the garden that I dried in my dehydrator. The real key is to add tons of garlic powder and paprika. Adding fresh herbs tends to make meatballs/hamburgers fall apart, in my experience. After adding a handful of dried herbs and spices, I add a tablespoon of barbecue or hot sauce. Then you mix it with your hands and shape into meatballs or hamburgers. And don’t over cook them!

Good call on the shrooms - I’ll shred a few and add them to the patty. You know what I’ve also found that adds a real “meatiness”? MAGGI! It’s all about the umami.

Don’t handle them too much, pack them loosely, and yank them off the heat as soon as they’re cooked through. I like to start them in a smoking-hot cast iron pan, but I cut the heat down to a medium-low level once they’re in the pan. That way they get a nice crust but they still cook through before overcoloring. They were soooooo good. I stir-fried some sugar snaps to go alongside. I eat ‘em with lots of ketchup.

Also, there’s the trick of mixing ground meats. A nice turkey/pork mix works well.

Spice-wise I’ve tried just about everything. A lot works with Turkey, as long as you keep in mind the fact that it needs a lot more spicing than beef. And actually a much wider variety of additives work with turkey than with beef. Sweet and savory solutions work equally well.