I’ve spent a while coming up with what I think is an easy weeknight burger. Nothing special or fancy. No need to “grind your own”, mix in ground bacon, use expensive grass fed or wagyu ground beef, etc. Just a simple burger that comes out juicy and flavorful. You can cook it on a traditional pan, cast iron, or the grill. Any method works well. What results is Easy Weeknight Burgers.

About Cooking The Burgers

I actually think this comes out better in a cast iron pan on the stove top. Every surface of the burger gets a great maillard reaction. That is what leads to very flavorful beef. The more you can maximize it, the better your burgers come out. However, I have cooked this recipe on all sorts of surfaces. Traditional pan, griddle, grill, cast iron pans. It turns out well, no matter, what.

One quick note about cooking burgers and temperatures. It’s very highly recommended that you cook the burger to an internal temp of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. I know that we all like them more like medium than done. However, ground beef has the potential to have a lot of bad pathogens, like E.Coli, mixed in. If you don’t get the interior of the burger to 160 degrees, you won’t kill the E.Coli. For more on the topic, see this article at Amazing Ribs.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how to prep the burgers to be American Burgers. I love brioche buns that have been toasted. To that, I add all the fixings …. pickles, bacon, lettuce, tomato, sauces, onions, avocado, whatever floats your boat, really. I highly recommend trying my Smash Sauce on your burgers. Put all that together and you get easy weeknight burgers.

Easy Weeknight Burgers

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Recipe by Eric Course: Burgers

Servings

3

servings

Prep time

35

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

Calories

300

kcal

Total time

45

minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef – 90% lean is fine.

• 2 tbsp grapeseed oil, divided – we need this to get to high temp in the pan. If grilling, you only need 1 tbsp

• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1 tsp Morton’s kosher salt

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• 1/2 tsp fine ground black pepper

Method

• Put all the burger ingredients into a mixing and mix together by hand.
• Form 3 equal sized patties out of the ground beef mixture
• Lay them out on cookie sheet lined with wax paper (so they don’t stick)
• Make a good thumbprint in the center of each patty, which will help keep the burger from puffing up in the center while cooking.
• Put burgers in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This helps with the flavor, acting as an internal marinade.
• Prep a grill to medium high heat or preheat a pan or griddle. If you are testing with an IR thermometer, you want the pan surface temp at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a pan or griddle, add 1 tbsp grapeseed oil, which can go to 520 degrees without scorching.
• Put burgers on direct heat, cook for 4 minutes on side 1. Turn gently to avoiding breaking them and cook an additional 4 minutes.
• Turn one more time, put cheese on if desired, and cook covered for the last 2 minutes
• Burger internal temp should be 160 degrees to ill all the pathogens possible in ground beef.
• Reserve burgers on a cookie sheet (or plate) while people are prepping their buns and sides and then add burgers to the buns at the last.
• Enjoy!

Notes

• I do not include the cheese, buns, sauces, etc in the nutrition information. Every person’s burger is different and you will need to calculate those things on their own.
• You can cook to less than 160F (which results in well done for beef after carry over cooking), but it adds risk due to the potential for bacteria to not be killed during cooking.