Figuring out How to Grill: Hamburgers

I'm excited to cook again after visiting grandparents in Tucson for a week, and today I took advantage of the nice weather outside (was one of the coolest days in a while, only 80 degrees). I've made burgers using a cast iron skillet before, but I think the smoke flavor inherent in grilled food made these way better than the burgers I've made on the stove. I also used ground elk meat for these because I wanted to try something different than the normal bison, and that turned out super good! This meal is also fun for the family because I was able to put together a "burger bar" with all the toppings the family wanted. They got to make their own, which added fun to the dinner and relived stress for me.

Ingredients
2lbs ground meat of your choice
Burger buns if you want them, my family prefers low carb so I skipped them today.
Whatever seasoning blend you like for burgers (I used garlic powder, seasoning salt, white pepper, dried minced onion, cayenne pepper, and garum masala.)
Shredded cheddar cheese
A little neutral oil to fry your first batch of patties
Burger Topping Suggestion:
Sautéed yellow onion
Pickles
Sliced roma tomato
Romaine lettuce
Ketchup/Mustard
Spicy mayo (or any other spicy sauce if you want heat)
Start by mixing your ground meat with your seasonings and forming them into patties. I was able to get 7 large patties from my 2 pounds of meat (meaning each patty was a little over 4 ounces), but the number of patties you will get will depend on how big you want them. Try to get them as thin as you can so they cook quickly.
Turn your grill on and let it preheat before you start cooking your patties. I made my burger bar while I waited, which included slicing veggies and sauteing onions.  
Once your grill is hot (I used a griddle attachment because I wasn't confident about cooking the patties right on the bars), spray a little bit of cooking oil and then start grilling your patties. Mine took around 3 minutes a side, but since the heat of a grill can variate, just check them every couple of minutes.
Once you've flipped your patties for the last time, sprinkle on some cheese and close the lid of the grill so it melts. 
Once the cheese is all melted, take your patties off the grill and and fix them to your liking (or hand them to a family member and tell them to fix them themselves). 
These were super delicious, and as a plus, I smell really good now because my hair smells like smoky burgers.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stuffed Manicotti Pasta

Image
Recently, my parents came back from grocery shopping with these really large noodles that I've never seen before, and they wanted me to try to make something with them. They looked like oversized penne noodles. A google search told me that they were manicotti, and it seems like a lot of the recipes on the internet for this type of pasta use the same ingredients as lasagna. My parents think that I would to well on the game show Chopped, where you have to make a meal out of a bunch of random ingredients, so they like to bring back random things for me to try lol.  Ingredients: 14 manicotti noodles The Filling 8 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed 15 oz ricotta 1/2 cup grated parmesan  1 egg 1 tsp minced garlic 2 tbsp Italian seasoning Salt and pepper to taste The Sauce 25 oz container of your favorite pasta sauce 1 lb. package Italian sausage 1 medium onion diced 3-ish leaves of fresh basil cut into strips Olive oil to sauté the onion Salt and pepper to taste Topping 1/3 cup grate...
Read more

Figuring Out How to Grill: Chicken and Scallop Kebabs

Image
So, I channeled my inner suburban dad today and got out the grill. I don't know if it's the summer heat, the people having fun with their fireworks 3 days before the 4th of July, or my summer allergies getting to my head, but I've been enamored with grilling lately. I've made kebabs before, but I did them in the oven rather than on the grill, and I now fully appreciate how simple the oven is. I know I make fun of my oven for taking 8 years to heat up, but it doesn't cook my fingertips to a nice medium rare. However, the flavor I got on these grilled kebabs is something that would be really hard to replicate in an oven. I have some more refining to do on the method of these kebabs, but the flavors were amazing. Ingredients 3 chicken breasts 1lb small scallops Whatever veggies you like. I used yellow zucchini, mushroom, pineapple, pearl onion chunks, garlic clove chunks, bell pepper, and jalapeno.  3 tbsp avocado oil 1/3 cup olive oil 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce 2 tsp Old ...
Read more

Lebanese Arayes

Image
Arayes are Lebanese pita pockets with a savory meat filling, usually served with a sauce of some sort. I saw them on the internet about a week ago, and I thought of the chicken and cheese pita pockets that I used to love as a kid. The crunchy fried pita coupled with the warm spices in the meat appealed to me, and I knew I had to try making these.  Ingredients: 1 onion, minced very finely in a food processor (The recipes I found said to grate the onion, but my makeup was way too nice for that today) 1 1/4 lb. ground beef, lamb, or bison 1 tbsp garam masala 1 tbsp allspice 5 pita breads, cut into 10 halves Salt and pepper to taste Olive oil for frying I served these with a garlic sauce. I started to follow I recipe I found online, but didn't care for it, so I added things until it tasted good. I don't know the exact measurements I used, so I recommend doing some of your own research for a sauce that will go well with these, or inventing your own. I think a regular fry sauce would...
Read more