Classic Bacon Cheeseburger
Ingredients
- Ground Beef
- Eggs
- Bread crumbs
- Worcestershire sauce
- BBQ sauce
- Seasoning salt
- Montreal steak spice
- Garlic powder
- Bacon
- Cheese
- Buns
- Lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Onions
- Condiments
Instructions
- Prepare your ingredients. Slice your lettuce and onions and store in the fridge to keep crisp. Weigh your ground beef so you know how many patties it will make.
- Empty your ground beef in a large mixing bowl. Add 1 heaping tablespoon of bread crumbs, one egg and about ¾ tablespoon of BBQ sauce for every two patties. Also about a teaspoon of worcestershire, seasoning salt, steak spice and garlic powder per patty.
- Get your hands right in there and thoroughly mix everything up. Squish it between your fingers until it’s really mixed well. It should feel a little slimy and slightly sticky by the time that you are done.
- Lay out some wax paper on your counter. I use a scale for this next step. Portion the beef into quarter pound balls. Lay them on the wax paper and slightly push them into an oval, leaving plenty of space between them to flatten them out. Cover them all with another piece of wax paper.
- This is the fun part. Take the biggest, heaviest can out of the cupboard that you own. It needs to be at least 5 inches in diameter. Use the can to flatten the patties by giving them a really good, hard whack. Yes, just smash them with the flat end. I use a 1.4 litre can of pineapple juice.
- Heat up your BBQ and cut your bacon strips in half. Slice your cheese thinly and set aside. You’re going to cook the bacon on the BBQ while the burgers are cooking, so set the bacon in a BBQ safe plate.
- Spray the burgers with veggie spray and set on the BBQ. Put the plate of bacon on at the same time. When you flip the burgers, spray them again first.
- Load up your buns. I use ketchup, green relish and sliced onion rings on the bottom. Mayo, lettuce and tomato on the top.
- Just as the burgers are ready, add the bacon strips and sliced cheese. Close the lid of the BBQ. As soon as the cheese is melted, remove from the heat and place the burgers on your readied buns.
Notes
Who doesn’t love a bacon cheeseburger? They’re even better at home
Skip the Door Dash, skip the fat-food places, even skip the restaurants who fry a burger up on the flat top grill! Make your own BBQ burgers from scratch and they are not only more nutritious, but way more tasty!
When I was growing up, we never had homemade burgers. My Dad was the ‘BBQ King’ and did amazing things with steaks, ribs, chops, etc … but never could get the burgers right. He even went out and bought one of those ‘fancy’ burger presses to try to form the patties better — to no avail!
He would light the barbecue, always with briquettes, make the patties, prep all of the fixings and then watch in horror as his patties dried up, broke apart, fell through the grill and burned on the briquettes. He would try to scoop up what he could salvage and put that on the buns.
I tried a few times after I left home to make burgers and always got the same result as Dad. Of course, I was basically using his recipe, so what’s that old saying, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result’.
I learned, years later, from some incredible chefs that what we were both missing is a combination of a binder and pressure. The binder — eggs and bread crumbs — holds the patty together while it cooks and dries out. The pressure forces the little pockets of air out of the patties so they adhere properly and maintain their form, even as they dry and shrink.
I was cooking up in Dodge with ‘Big Ernie’, the head chef. What an amazing chef! When Ernie taught me his burger recipe, I knew that I had found the best ever.
It’s funny, we would do up 5 kg of burger at a time and one of the ingredients is seasoning salt. Ernie was showing me the mixture and grabbed the bucket of seasoning salt. “Add a heaping handful of salt,” he said. Then he grabbed my hand, turned it over, laughed and said, “in your case, better make that two heaping handfuls!”
I have, unashamedly, used his recipe ever since to great success and accolade, both at home and in restaurant kitchens.
Big Ernie, this one’s for you! (Sorry about giving away your trade secrets brother. But you are retired now.)
