From perfectly layering your toppings to melting your cheese with precision,
here's everything you need to know to nail a restaurant-quality burger every time!
At the heart of every great burger is the right meat. And when shopping for ingredients for their
homemade burgers, well-intentioned home cooks seek out what they think is the best-quality
ground meat and often reach for the option with the lowest fat content. After all, you want to
taste the beef, not the fat, so shouldn't the leanest meat give you the beefiest flavor?
Sadly, no. According to The New York Times, the beefiest,
juiciest burgers are made from meat with a fat content of about 20%,
and restaurants typically source meat with this fat ratio. Anything leaner than that will cook
up dry and flavorless — so avoid choosing any ground beef specifically marked "lean."
If you're craving the juiciness and flavor of a traditional burger,
you have to accept that it won't be diet food and enjoy it without apology. Still,
it's possible to have too much of a good thing — and star chef Michael Symon told
The New York Times that overly fatty meat can also yield a substandard burger, saying,
"Things happen. Bad things. Shrinkage."
"Yes! Significant shrinkage!"
"So, you feel you were short-changed?
"Yes!"
Enjoying a burger is about more than just taste — it's also a visual and tactile experience.
There's something satisfying about the look and feel of a good restaurant burger in your hand,
the patty perfectly encased between the buns without being overwhelmed by them. This is because
restaurants size their burgers consistently — look at the flattop behind the counter at
any fast food place, and you'll see row after row of identically sized patties. In contrast,
our measured-by-eyeball homemade burgers often come out too big or too small for the bun.
So what size should your burger patty be? This depends on the type of burger you're
shooting for. Generally, burgers fall into two families: thick, pub-style burgers and the thin,
crispy-edged smash burgers found at most fast food places and diners. Both can be delicious,
but to get them right, the patties have to be appropriately sized. A good size for a smash
burger is 3 to 4 ounces of raw meat, about the size of a scoop of ice cream. For a pub burger,
around 7 or 8 ounces of raw meat is appropriate. But avoid the temptation to go much bigger than
that. Lest you end up with a lump of undercooked meatloaf sitting on a bun.
"Mmm, I love this burger. So delicious!"
Have you ever wondered why burgers from fast food joints and greasy spoon diners have that
distinct succulence that's tough to replicate at home? Looking closely at how they're made,
you'll notice they're almost always cooked on a hot flat-top griddle that has seen dozens,
if not hundreds, of other burgers cooked on it that day. All these
burgers leave behind fat and flavor to be absorbed by the next batch of burgers.
That's why some people advise home chefs to cook their hamburgers in a skillet, and never directly
on a grill. The rendering fat that collects in the pan bastes the meat and contributes extra flavor.
If you're really dying to use your grill, however,
it's recommended you heat your skillet on the grill to cook your burgers that way.
Passionate home cooks are hands-on people who love playing with their food. But while
a willingness to watch cooking projects closely and make any needed adjustments is laudable,
there is also virtue in knowing when to stand back and do nothing.
Take the case of flipping burgers. Contrary to what your parents might have told you,
flipping burgers on a professional level actually requires some skill.
While some well-meaning home cooks flip their burgers compulsively,
either out of a fear of burning them or the need to feel like they're doing something,
pros know that giving their burgers a period of contact time with the griddle yields the
tastiest results. As celebrity chef Bobby Flay explained to Today, you should leave your burger
undisturbed in your pan or griddle for at least three minutes so it develops a flavorful crust.
"Do not even start flipping the burger until a crust has formed or the meat will fall apart,
and you will lose that perfect round shape."
Thus, your burgers should only be flipped once.
In busy professional kitchens, a common mantra is "work smarter,
not harder." Experienced cooks know how to make every movement count and understand
that sometimes doing less can not only save them time and effort but also yield better
results. And this holds true even for the seemingly simple task of cooking burgers.
If you've ever been to a busy diner or take-out and seen a cook frying up
dozens of burgers at a time, you might have noticed the cook didn't move them
around or repeatedly smash them the way some nervous home cooks do. Instead,
pro cooks mostly monitor them for doneness, flipping them just once before serving them.
While avoiding doing too much and smashing a dozen burgers at once clearly has practical advantages,
it also has a culinary advantage. As noted by the Chicago Tribune, un-smashed burgers
are juicier and tastier. And that makes sense, considering when you press down on a burger,
you squeeze out all the flavorful juices. So even if you're making thin smash burgers, smash them
down only once at the beginning of the cooking process, and avoid the temptation to do it again.
In burger making, as in life, getting the simplest things right is sometimes not as obvious
as it seems. Take the seemingly mindless task of shaping a hamburger patty: Grab a handful of meat,
roll it into a ball, and flatten it to your desired thickness. Provided you portion out the
right amount of meat and your patty is reasonably round, you should in principle end up with a
perfectly cooked burger, ready to slide onto a bun and top with the condiments of your choice.
But as many of us have learned from personal experience, uncooked burgers can undergo
ugly transformations during cooking. Instead of cooking up as perfectly flat disks,
they can evolve into bulging blobs resembling lopsided meatballs — something that never
seems to happen at restaurants. The bulging occurs because the
meat's connective tissue contracts under high heat while the meat itself swells,
causing the patty to bulge. This is more likely to occur when cooking with a grill or broiler,
where the edges of the burger are exposed to high heat and likely to contract. To counteract this,
celebrity chef Bobby Flay recommends pressing a thumbprint into the center of each patty.
“And we're going to make a well in the burger so that when it actually cooks,
it's gonna come back to the shape that we want."
We all know what it's like to put together your own burger at a backyard cookout,
you grab a just-cooked burger off the serving platter, pull a cold bun from a plastic bag,
and put it together with whatever condiments the host has lying around.
And while the company and conversation may be great, the burger itself will likely be
mediocre. Even if the cook got the burger right, it will be saddled inside a mushy,
flavorless bun that's probably too big or too small for the patty.
There's a reason hamburger buns at your favorite fast food place taste better than those you pick
up at the supermarket. Namely, because restaurants commission their own buns sized and formulated for
their specific requirements. Quality hamburger buns must meet a number of standards, among other
things, they must be soft and fluffy enough to be easy to chew, but resilient enough not to get
soggy once exposed to meat juices and condiments. They must also bake to a uniform color.
If you don't have the clout to commission your own bespoke buns,
Michael McDearman, a judge for the World Burger Championship,
recommends Martin's potato rolls, which can be easily found at most grocery stores.
Burgers might have a reputation as brainless fast food, but restaurant chains put a lot
of thought into the details of their production, from the size of the patties
to the color of the buns to the precise order and amount of toppings. And one simple detail
sets restaurant burgers apart from many of their homemade counterparts: A toasted bun.
This extra step really does make a difference, as McDonald's found out the hard way,
according to Fortune. In the 1990s, McDonald's decided to stop toasting its buns in an effort
to streamline operations, only to backtrack a few years later after
customers protested the change. Since then, it's doubled down on toasting its buns.
As part of the chain's 2018 strategic turnaround plan,
it ordered its restaurants to toast buns five seconds longer,
which helped to keep the burgers warmer. Toasting hamburger buns not only keeps burgers warmer but
also improves their texture by keeping the buns from becoming soggy while you eat.
There's nothing more satisfying than that first bite of a fully loaded burger topped
with creamy condiments, gooey melted cheese, and crisp and juicy vegetables. And there's
nothing more frustrating than painstakingly assembling that perfect burger and taking a
big bite only to have most of its contents slide out of the bun and onto your lap.
It doesn't have to be that way, though. Even generously topped knife-and-fork
restaurant pub burgers tend to hold together because the
toppings are layered strategically to prevent sogginess and slippage.
Experts differ on what the optimal ordering of toppings should be, but preeminent fry
cook Spongebob Squarepants certainly has his thoughts about how it should be done.
"First bun, then patty, followed by ketchup,
mustard, pickles, extra onions, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, and bun! In that order."
But, if getting your cooking advice from a children's cartoon show isn't your style,
The Art of Manliness offers a well-reasoned strategy you can use as a starting point.
Start by spreading your condiments on the top and bottom buns to help anchor the other ingredients
in place. If you're using mayo, spread it on the bottom bun, where it will act as a barrier
to prevent meat juices from making the bun soggy. Next, layer the lettuce and the tomatoes on the
bottom bun, as they'll be less likely to slip out if placed under the meat. The lettuce will also
help to further protect the bun from sogginess. Then add your cooked patty with melted cheese,
followed by the onions and pickles if you so choose, capping it all off with the top bun.
There's a right way and a wrong way to add cheese to your burger. The wrong way is to add the cheese
slices after the burgers are cooked. It's dead easy but based on one of two faulty premises:
first, that cold hard cheese is just as appetizing on a burger as melted cheese,
and second, that residual heat from the burger will be sufficient to melt
the cheese. News flash: It's not, and it won't!
Instead, as celebrity chef Bobby Flay says you need to be sure to melt your cheese completely
— and don't skimp on the quantity of cheese. His go-to combo is a slice of American cheese and a
slice of white cheddar. He puts on the cheese just after flipping the burger, adds a splash of water,
then covers the pan. The water steams, causing the cheese to melt evenly and fully.
If you've ever wondered why some restaurant burgers have that extra bit of richness and
flavor that you've never managed to achieve with your homemade burgers, here's some good news:
this magical secret ingredient is probably already in your refrigerator.
"And the secret ingredient is…butter!"
Some popular hamburger restaurants, including Culver's, use butter when preparing their burgers,
and it can make a big difference in the flavor and texture of the finished burger.
And happily, you don't need to drench your burgers in butter to make them noticeably
richer. While butter is so central to the flavor profile at Culver's that its signature
dish is known as the Butterburger, in reality, Butterburgers only include a touch of butter,
which is spread lightly on the top of the bun. Meanwhile,
Smashburger uses butter on its griddles to fry its burgers — this adds not only extra flavor
but helps the burgers develop a toasty, caramelized crust and a touch of crunch.