Selecting High-Quality Meats for Tasty Burgers

There is no end to the variety of delicious hamburgers you can make, but here are 12 that will make your mouth water.

J. Kenji Lpez-Alt composes a column for The New York Times on food and science, and he establishes recipes and appears in videos for NYT Cooking. He is likewise the creator and host of Kenji's Cooking Show on YouTube.

Credit ... Adam CentrellaAs an expert chef, food writer and cookbook author, I have actually spent the last 20 years of my career carefully looking into and checking recipes, methods and widely accepted cooking area knowledge to find out the whys of cooking. Over this time, I've run several hamburger joints and even wrote a monthly column for Serious Eats called the Burger Lab, in which I isolated and tested every possible variable that can affect the taste and texture of a burger.

However that does not indicate you can't go for something much better. Here are the most important suggestions I have actually discovered for enhancing your hamburger experience, whether in the backyard or the kitchen area. Working ground beef too much can cause it to become dense. Credit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Crafting Restaurant-Quality Side Fries in Your Home

In bread, this can be an advantage, however with hamburgers, overhandling can produce an unwanted thick texture. (Incorporating extenders, like eggs or breadcrumbs, or additional seasoning, like onions and herbs, likewise requires you to exhaust the meat and sidetrack from the beef flavor, so skip it.) Salting the outside of your patties keeps their texture loose and tender.

This is an excellent thing in sausages, which ought to have a firm texture, but with hamburgers, you want looseness. A burger should be tender, with plenty of pockets for juices and rendered fat to collect.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Browning your patties deeply makes the most of flavor. Credit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Whether you're making a huge burger on the grill or a crisp-edged smash hamburger on a griddle, browning is flavor, and high heat is key. For thicker grilled or griddled burgers, wait until your pan or grill is hot before including the patties, and prepare them until they're well browned on both sides.

This maximizes flavor while preserving juiciness. Preparing your buns ahead of time lets you get to eating so much quicker. Credit ... Bryan Gardner for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Do not let your patties sit around on the cutting board (or even worse, a steam table). Hamburgers are at their finest fresh from the fire, before any juices have had a possibility to drip out.

Smash BurgersCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Diner BurgerCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Thick Backyard BurgerCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Follow,,, and.

Steps to Perfect the Ultimate Flat-Top Burger

Upgraded May 7, 2026, 8:42 a.m. CTI have actually always been a burger enthusiast. If there were any little melty American cheese leavings stuck on the wrapper, I 'd drag my french fries through them (I still do this).

Catch me on the best day and I might admit that a cheeseburger is my favorite food. Even if you do, it's likely we don't have the same concept of what makes the perfect hamburger.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

I kept some old favorites, included some new ones and continued to leave off the ones I understand individuals like however I just. Maybe I have not attempted your preferred burger. Perhaps I'm out to get you (just joking).

There's one perfect burg out there for everyone. Let me share with you what makes the perfect burger for me. Let's start with the patty. Can I say I'm growing a little sick of smashburgers? The very best ones astonishingly remain juicy with just a hint of flaky char around the edges, however unfortunately, many places go too hard on the smash.

When I bite in, I need to see a little shimmer, some shining from the beef and perhaps a little grease running down the sides. When I see a smashburger on the menu, I constantly opt for a double patty. Smashburger or not, the patty should be seared to assist lock in the juices, but not too crusty.