Five Tips for Grilling the Best Hamburgers

Enjoy this Stacked-High Grilled Burger whenever you crave homestyle hamburgers from the grill.  Today is National Cheeseburger Day, and I want to share this great hamburger recipe with you.

First, I want to share some tips on how to make the best-grilled hamburger.

Tip One: Buy the best beef you can find. Not sure what the best is? Ask your meat market manager.

Tip Two: Choose a blend of herbs and spices to enhance the flavor of the meat.

Tip Three: If you must have salt, add it to the hamburger just before forming into patties. Or, wait until after the patties are ready for grilling, then add the salt. Sometimes, I only season the hamburger with the herbs and spices and place the salt shaker on the table if needed.

Tip Four: Shape the patties large and thick enough that they won’t fall between the grates on the grill and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to put them on the grill.

Tip Five: Grill with wood chips to add more flavor to the meat.

Craving Grilled Hamburgers

My husband and I have been craving grilled hamburgers lately, so we stopped by the meat market for top-grade ground beef last weekend. Soaked with mesquite wood and charcoal-grilled, the burgers turned out better than ever. We didn’t wait to celebrate today’s special cheeseburger occasion.

Grilling means preparing plenty of meat for leftover meals, at least at our place. Good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, grilled hamburgers go a long way. Recipes from my Kitchen Southern Hospitality kitchen include good old-fashioned hamburgers like the Stacked-High Grilled Burger with buns, served as hamburger steaks combined with our favorite vegetables, and even breakfast entrees such as grilled hamburger omelets.

Calorie Counting

Stacked high or low, this burger recipe tastes so good that you’ll want to eat the whole thing. Counting calories? You’ll be tempted to devour the whole cheeseburger. But if you’re determined to eliminate calories, cut the burger in half and save the rest for later. Really, though, who wants a leftover hamburger on a bun with a soggy tomato and limp lettuce inside?

Before I tell you how to make this amazing cheeseburger, there’s one more thing. This grilled burger tastes much better with a farm-fresh tomato slice. The flavor of a ripe home-grown tomato surpasses the ones purchased at a grocery store. The store-bought tomatoes taste poorly because they are harvested before having time to mature.

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Stacked-High Grilled Burger

Grilled hamburgers with cheese

Ingredients

• 4 lbs Ground Chuck
• 1 tbsp Weber Smokey Mesquite Seasoning
• 2 tsp Santa Fe Seasons Six Seasonings a blend of Mexican oregano, cumin, coriander, garlic, cilantro, saffron
• 1 tsp Basil
• 2 slices Organic Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• 2 slices Farm Fresh Tomatoes
• 2 leaves Red Leaf Lettuce
• 2 Sweet Onions, sliced thin
• 1 handful Mesquite wood chips
• 1 small pkg Charcoal Briquets

Instructions

1. Cover the wood chips with water in a bucket and soak for at least 30 minutes.

2. Mix the ground chuck with seasonings and form into large patties (Add the mesquite seasoning last).

3. Prepare the grill, heat the charcoal, add the wood chips, then add the meat (Your grilling may vary according to your type of grill and type of meat you're grilling, etc.).

4. Add a slice of cheese on two hamburgers just before taking them off of the grill (You can either top all of the hamburgers now with cheese, or add cheese later.).

5. Cook onion slices over the stove in a cast iron skillet with enough oil to cover the bottom of the skillet (5-8 minutes or more, depending on your stove and how you like your onions).

6. Add mayonnaise and/or mustard to the onion bun.
   

7. Place the lettuce on the bottom bun, top it with a tomato slice, add onion slices next, put the hamburger on top of the onions, and place the top of the onion bun over the hamburger and cheese.
   

8. Serve with ketchup or barbecue sauce.

Options if you don’t have a grill, you don’t feel like grilling, it’s too cold, hot, or wet to grill (My husband grilled one day while the rain was pouring, and a friend of ours who lives in the northern states used to grill when it was snowing outside.):

• Pan fry the burgers.
• Broil the burgers.
• Wrap the patties individually in foil, and cook them in a slow cooker (I’ve done this. It works.)
• Try cooking the patties in a pressure cooker (I can’t guarantee that they will stay in the shape that you formed them, but I have also used this method – and it worked.)

Best option? Grill them.