Best Homemade Beef Burgers (5 Ingredients!) - Kylee Cooks (2024)

FAQs

What is the best beef mixture for burgers? ›

A good basic mixture would be to use 50% chuck (the cheap and lean), 25% rib plate (the fatty parts) and 25% brisket (the fatty and beef flavor). Alternative cuts that make a damn good burger without emptying your wallet are round (lean) and navel (the fatty beef belly).

To assemble the burger, spread some mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard on the bottom half of each bun. Add a few lettuce leaves and a slice of tomato. Place the burger patty with the melted cheese on top of the tomato, then add a few pickles. Cover with the top half of the bun.

A juicy burger is always a welcome dish, but one that is seasoned properly is even better. This basic burger seasoning is made with a blend of paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne pepper. Feel free to add a little minced dried onion for added flavor and a bit of texture if you like.

For More Tender Ground Meat, Grind It After Cooking Too

And it's easy enough to get: Just cook your meat with seasonings as you usually would, then cool the mixture and transfer it to a food processor. Pulse it together to your desired consistency and you'll have a much more tender and hom*ogenous filling.

80% lean ground chuck (shoulder) will be the juiciest and most flavorful. It's also the grind I recommend for making burgers for the grill. It has the perfect fat-to-meat ratio. These burgers will still be juicy when grilled to the recommended internal temperature of 160 degrees.

If I'm going for a medium-rare burger I don't need to have as much fat to keep them juicy. For this, I'll probably go with an 80/20 blend. If I'm going for medium-well, get a 70/30 blend. Well-done burgers will dry out quickly so get a mix with a high percentage of fat, something along the lines of 60/40.

The burgers will shrink slightly as they cook, so you want the raw patties to skew a little larger than the buns onto which they'll eventually land. Make a small dimple in the center of the patty—this indentation will prevent your burger from puffing up like a balloon, ensuring an even and picturesque patty.

What makes a burger so tasty? ›

The best burgers offer a combination of tastes and textures – sweet, sour, salt – with a bit of crunch. The patty needs to be juicy, the bun soft but sturdy, and you want the meat/bun/accompaniment ratio to be even from first to last bite. Then you can add to your heart's content.

Essential ingredients for a good hamburger

For a hamburger in its classic version (meat, cheese, onion and lettuce) the aim is to achieve that ideal proportion between: Quantity of meat (and quality of that meat) That onion that sweetens but doesn't chop. A fresh, crisp lettuce as if freshly picked from the garden.

Binding burger patty with a combination of eggs and breadcrumbs will provide better results than using them individually. Mixing ingredients thoroughly is important for binding a burger patty. It is advisable to use your hand to shape the mixture into balls and then flatten them using a spatula.

What you are looking for when you purchase your meat is a good fat ratio. The golden rule of burgers is in the vicinity of 70/30 meat/fat to 80/20. Just ensure there is a good amount of visible fat.

The magic of the smash burger (that crisp, caramelized crust) comes from the combination of high heat and the high fat content of the burger. Because of this, smash burgers don't work as well with a leaner ground beef, so aim for an 80-85% meat to fat ratio. Ground chuck would also work wonderfully here.