Making a good stovetop burger

[BareSteel]

I'm searching for some tips for making a delicious burger on the stove instead of on the grill. We're talking iron skillet or something similar.

I'm open to all advice, from burger meat to bun to condiments to preparation to cooking method.

Thanks for sharing,

[Robert Santana]

Can't go wrong with a cast iron skillet. I've made mine that way on occasion. Pretty good.

[lspr_93]

I make 200g burgers on top of a griddle that goes on top of the stove. Just meat salt and pepper. Grill about three minutes each side at max stove temperature and done.

The cuts here are a bit different than the US, but from what I googled the meat cut I use is lean beef knuckle. You can add bacon for a bit more fat.

[Jason Donaldson]

I regularly eat burgers made from ground goat. I have a friend from whom I get the animals, processed locally. The taste from does and wethers isn't very strong, and so isn't much different from beef. The meat is rather lean, too.

I pan fry them - the big secret I've found is making sure the pan is good and hot before adding the meat. Water droplets should skip around on the surface, not stick, and don't try to flip it until it's not sticking at all. I season with salt and maybe pepper, or with a jar of Lion's Choice seasoning my mother-in-law gave me because I like eating there when we visit the St. Louis area.

I toast the buns in the pan, too, in what little grease there is. They're good enough like that that I often don't add anything else.

A soft-fried egg goes really well on them, too.

[Robert Santana]

I've been partial to bison lately. Good stuff.

[Leo M]

If you use cast iron, make sure it's really hot before you lay down the patty. Many people don't wait long enough, and then it sticks. You don't need to use butter nor oil if the cast iron is hot enough.

It's not against the law to cover it while cooking. Less grease splatter.

[Robert Santana]

I had not considered that. I just put it on low heat to avoid sticking and that worked but made everything take forever. I'll try it that way.

[Daltonar]

Heat is your friend with cast iron. I've always been partial to a stack of thin smash-burgers slathered in caramelized onions. 2-3 (4oz) patties, thrown on the heat and smashed really thin, stacked with a slice of cheese each. Better than a thickburger IMO.

[Lost and Found]

Drain as much moisture (water) out of your ground meat before making a burger. This goes for browning ground meat for other uses like tacos. You want to brown the meat (caramelization) not "gray" the meat by boiling it. I use a paper towel to remove the last moisture from a patty before it hits the hot cast iron. Turn it once.

[Satch12879]

Drain as much moisture (water) out of your ground meat before making a burger. This goes for browning ground meat for other uses like tacos. You want to brown the meat (caramelization) not "gray" the meat by boiling it. I use a paper towel to remove the last moisture from a patty before it hits the hot cast iron. Turn it once.

Because I've spent time on this problem, the mechanics of browning chopped meat for say tacos and preparing a burger are in fact quite different. It does not matter if the meat is wet or dry if you're trying to cook it for tacos because you will boil away that water before you can begin to brown it. Properly browned chopped meat for tacos or Bolognese sauce can't be done quickly. You basically want to fry the meat in its own fat. This means evacuating the water, then evaporating it, then rendering the fat, then working the meat to the necessary degree of brownness.

There was a method long ago, the Sinatra burger trick, in which you took a cast iron pan, got it hot, threw coarse salt down on the surface, and then placed the patty. I have never tried it and know nothing else about it, but it always intrigued me, conceptually.

I do not make burger inside as a rule; far too messy on the stove and too smelly in the house without a proper exhaust I will make a big chopped steak using Frank Prisinzano's brown butter method, however. I believe it can be modified for burger purposes. It is low temperature, no smoke, minimal splatter, very easy to control temperature, too. Superb crust.