Known for their amazing burgers and shakes, Shake Shack is easily one the most beloved
fast food chains in the country. It's also home of the Shackburger — one of the most
popular, and yummy, burgers in America. Here's what makes the Shackburger so delicious.
Shake Shack chose to pair their world famous Shackburgers with pillowy potato buns. For
Shake Shack's chefs, it's all about texture. Culinary director, Mark Rosati , also had
this to add:
"We want the bun to be nice and soft and tender."
If you're wondering how Shake Shack's buns get so soft, the burger company owes it to
Martin's Famous Pastry Shoppe, a family-owned bakery based in Pennsylvania. The Shake Shack
chefs stick to what they know best and let the professionals handle their buns.
"And what's great about this bun is it doesn't fight you as you're eating it."
Shake Shack also butters and toasts their buns to add another layer of textural variance
to each bite. Shake Shack recommends buttering the inside of each half and toasting it face-down
on the skillet. In doing this, according to Rosati, you get a nice soft bun on the outside,
while also creating a crispy interior.
"I'm going to get a, uh, cheeseburger… a shackburger."
"Shackburger."
"A shackburger! Sorry."
Many home chefs know there are numerous benefits to cooking with a cast iron pan. From its
long lifespan to its ability to maintain high temperatures, cast iron pans are a versatile
tool for all your searing needs, as Shake Shack cooks can attest. The Shackburger is
made using a cast iron pan instead of a grill. While diehard grillers may be offended by
this choice, Mark Rosati insists that using a cast iron pan to cook your burger will yield
an evenly browned patty.
The rich flavor of the Shackburger can largely be attributed to this technique. By creating
a seared crust around the meat, the juices get trapped inside. Where grills only allow
for a few points of contact between burger and heat, a cast iron pan connects the entire
surface of the burger with the hot pan. And the more contact the burger has with the pan,
the better the crust. According to Mark Rosati, there's a reason for this:
"The crust you're developing is where all the flavor is."
The most essential element of Shake Shack's Shackburger is, of course, the meat itself.
Shake Shack uses only the best beef, sourced from Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors. According
to Mark Rosati, culinary director of the burger chain, the most important factor in meat selection
is the fat content.
As notable chef Samin Nosrat writes in her book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, fat imparts flavor
into any dish, so it is an important factor in developing meat with a robust taste. When
asked about the type of meat used in the shackburger, Mark Rosati had this to add:
"We're looking for good fat content [...] For us that's somewhere around 20/80. 20 percent
fat to 80 percent lean. If you really want something amazing, go a little higher — go
about 22 percent fat."
Shake Shack's exact ratio is kept a secret, as is the specific cut of meat from which
the Shackburger is formed. But Shake Shack CEO Randy Garutti confirmed on TODAY Food
that his company's burgers are 100-percent beef, with no hormones or antibiotics.
One of the most important parts of the Shackburger process is the smash. Shackburgers are thin
but unbelievably flavorful, due in large part to this technique. The Shackburger recipe
requires pressing the meat directly onto the hot pan to sear the meat and create a beautiful
crust that locks in all the juices.
One of Shake Shack's tricks for cooking their burgers perfectly is to limit the smash to
a single window of time. The meat should be pressed thin to about half an inch immediately
after placing it on the pan. If you smash it again, as many assume is necessary after
the flip, the juices that have gathered in your burger will get squished out, and you'll
lose flavor.
The other trick? A super secret smasher. According to Epicurious , it took the Shake Shack team
five years to create the perfect tool to ensure their signature meat crust. Unfortunately,
they're not sharing.
Like many great burgers, the meat is not the only star of the show, as Shake Shack's secret
sauce carries its own weight in the Shackburger's flavor. When Mark Rosati and CEO Randy Garutti
appeared on the Today Show, they gave away some — but not all — of their secrets.
"What do you think is in the secret sauce?"
"I don't care, it doesn't matter. It's… it's amazing."
The secret sauce is a combination of many ingredients you probably have in your kitchen
right now. Mayonnaise, ketchup, and Dijon are mixed together along with a dash of cayenne
pepper for heat and some of the liquid from a jar of pickles, which adds a unique acidic
flavor to the sauce. This recipe will get you close to the real thing, but Shake Shack
keeps its secret ingredient under wraps. But if you're looking for a way to get the taste
of Shake Shack in the comfort of your home, this version of the secret sauce makes it
easy.
Shake Shack keeps its recipes simple to allow the natural flavors of its carefully sourced
ingredients to shine. To season Shackburger beef, Shake Shack cooks use just a sprinkle
of salt and pepper on each side of the burger. According to the New York Post, a half-cup
of kosher salt to a half-teaspoon of pepper is the magic ratio that Shake Shack uses on
all their burgers.
The seasoning is added before the burger is smashed, allowing the meat to absorb the flavor
as it cooks. Once it's flipped, on goes another sprinkle of salt and pepper, and to top it
off, a slice of cheese is added to the seared side of the patty. Then, the burger is finally
ready to take its rightful place on a pillowy potato bun, beneath a slice of tomato, a lettuce
leaf, and a dollop of secret sauce.
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