Regular ground beef can sometimes make a lacklustre homemade hamburger. You can take your burgers to the next juicy, char broiled level by just tweaking a few things.
(That's a DIY Charcuterie board ↑ you can learn how to make. )
To make some super-delicious homemade burgers you need a little more than just a mess of ground beef. For starters you can grind your own beef with a blade or cross rib roast. I show you how to do it, if you're interested, right here.
If you have pasture raised, dry aged beef with beautiful yellow fat in it you don't need to add anything other than a bit of seasoning to it.
But most of us are just buying regular ground beef at the grocery store which needs a bit of help.
With a few ingredients you probably already have around the kitchen you can make a great, big, juicy hamburger tonight! You have imported Asian truffle foam rooted by a one-eyed panda bear, right? (canned is fine)
Just kidding.
Read on for the recipe!
Table of Contents
Homemade Hamburger Recipe
1. Add one egg (yolk only) to 1 lb of the highest fat content ground beef you can find. (fat = flavour)
2. Add finely diced onion.
TIP: Do all your mixing gently. You want to work the meat as little as possible.
3. A blast of ketchup.
4. In goes a glob of Dijon mustard.
5. Squirt in a splash of Worcestershire sauce and gently mix.
6. Add in ¼ cup of breadcrumbs (just enough to help with binding) and a generous dose of salt and pepper.
7. Gently form into patties. DON'T squash them. Gently form them. Squashing is for bugs, not hamburgers.
Update: For everyone in apoplectic fits over adding ¼ of a cup of dry bread crumbs and the egg yolks this does not make it meatloaf. It does not. It really is still a hamburger. The tiny amounts of these two things act as a binder which are important. They keep hamburgers from falling apart on the grill.
How to Make the Patties?
The number 1 rule for making hamburger patties is to be GENTLE with them. You don't want to mush, smash or press them hard. They need to be pressed enough to stay together but you want to keep the integrity of the meat.
Form the meat into a bit of a ball and then press it between the palms of your hands until it's a disk shape. Put that disk on the countertop and continue to gently press and prod it until it's the right shape and size.
Just before dropping them into the pan or grill press your thumb into the centre of the burger and press it about halfway down. This helps it cook evenly.
How Big Should the Burger be?
A good rule of thumb is to make your patty ¾" - 1" thick, and wider than the bun. Anything thinner will run the risk of being dried out and anything bigger and they're easy to undercook.
You Put Egg in Them?
You bet I do. Egg acts as a binder helping to stick the hamburger together so it doesn't fall apart on the grill.
If you can't use egg to keep your burgers together another trick you can use is to refrigerate the patties, allowing them to set up, before cooking.
Making Sure it's Juicy
I've already given you one tip for ensuring you have a burger that drips down your chin and makes your eyes roll into the back of your head. By making it 1" thick. More tips for a juicy burger include:
- Pressing an indent into the centre of it before you cook. This will pop up as the burger cooks, and get you a more evenly cooked hamburger.
- Use regular or lean ground beef - never extra lean.
- Unless the person eating it is very young, very old or pregnant you can cook your burger until it has an internal temperature of 145.
How to Cook
Cast Iron
I almost exclusively cook meat in a cast iron pan. That includes hamburgers. Yes, even before using a grill, I will use my cast iron pan.
Cast iron heats up evenly and beautifully, is non stick, but can still get a good crusty sear on meat. The heat you set your pan to will depend on your stove, but I tend to heat it up quickly on high and then turn it down to medium/low once the burger hits the pan.
Oven
If you only have an oven (a toaster oven in a dorm for instance) you can cook these in there as well. Slip a cookie sheet into the oven and set it to 450 F (230 C). Once it's heated up slide your patties onto the hot cookie sheet and bake for approximately 5 minutes per side. When you flip the burger, flip it onto a part of the baking sheet that hasn't had burger on it yet - this will get you a better sear on the second side.
How to Make Homemade Hamburgers!
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 egg yolk
- ¼ cup finely very finely diced red onion. (you want it so small that once it cooks it disappears)
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1 tablespoon dijon
- 2 shakes Worcestershire sauce
- ¼ cup breadcrumbs just enough to aid in binding
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Mix together all ingredients gently. You don't want to mush and mash it.
- Form into 4 equally sized patties. (You can definitely stretch it and get 5 out of this recipe)
- Grill outdoors or cook in cast iron pan until done to your liking. About 4 minutes each side.
- Top with your favourite toppings!
Nutrition
Questions & Answers
- Isn't this really a meatloaf recipe? Um, no. It isn't. But I can see the confusion. Just make them. Trust me on this.
- What are the best hamburger buns? I used to be on a sesame seed bun kick, but now I only use brioche buns. I'm obsessed with them!
- What if I want a homemade fermented, New York style, Jewish deli pickle to go with my burger? No problem. Just click here for my classic fermented dill pickle recipe, based on fermenting God, Sandor Katz's pickles.
- Should you put lettuce on hamburgers? According to the late Anthony Bourdain? No. He has a point. If you don't eat the burger immediately the lettuce gets soft, warm and wilty.
- Can these be frozen? Of course! Just mix the ingredients, shape them into burgers and freeze them individually on wax paper. Once they're frozen you can stack them and store them.
Tune in next week for the next big debate: What's better for you? Frozen or homemade ice cubes.
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Missed this the first time around :)
It is exactly how I make my meatloaf lol!
I am going to try it out for BBQ'd Burgers now though, and you are so right about the Brioche Buns - no comparison!!
Option- fish sauce in lieu of Worcester Sauce. 😍
I use Sweet Baby Ray's Barbeque sauce instead of ketchup and mustard.
If you are using 70/30 hamburger the bread crumbs are the secret ingredient to keep the burger from falling apart. If you want a little more flavor use Italian bread crumbs.
I'm not a huge ketchup fan, but this looks worthy of giving it a go. I usually just add Montreal Steak Spice, breadcrumbs and an egg to the ground beef.
But I do have a question, why do you say to only use the yolk? Do you save the egg white for your egg white omelette??
Using the whole egg is too much liquid and it's the yolk that acts as a binder, not the white. :) ~ karen!
Funny that! you seem to have stolen my recipe 😋... that is exactly how I have been doing my burgers for decades (yes, I'm old)...
After serving disappointing lackluster burgers last night, this post couldn't have arrived at a more perfect time. Already printed the recipe and am all set for next burger night. thanks~
Loved you included a beer from the Shed Brewery (Shaun and Ed) in Dundas - absolutly excellent British style beer - my husband's favourite
Why do I not get the glorious, emotion-venting pleasure of smooshing the ingredients into the meat then slapping the heck outta those babies as I patty them up. What does it hurt?
It changes the texture and makes them hard and dense. Imagine doing the same thing to a piece of bread. Smashing it. It's no longer the same texture and density as it was before you smashed it. :) ~ karen!
I am on disability pension I do not have the luxury of having all kinds of exotic ingredients when making hamburgers ...does anyone know what to use as a binder when making hamburgers , meaning so that the burgers dot fall apart ? No I don’t want to use eggs because I have no eggs , my burgers are ground beef and vegetables and bread mixed & ground together but when I bake them , they fall apart easily so they are not condusive to putting on a burger , I have spend hours on the net looking for what to use as a binder something to make the ingredients stick together so when you bake cook the burger they don’t fall apart
remember I don’t have any eggs
Love the ingredient list! Am making these for lunch :)
Was looking for a hamburger recipe and came across this one! Egg and breadcrumbs? So juicy and delicious! I’ll definitely be using this preparation again!!
Good start for a meat loaf............
77563
Best burger I've ever had. Thank you for posting this.
Thanks very much for taking the time to come back and post that, Jan! I'm glad you liked them. :) ~ karen!
These were delicious!
Thanks for letting me know Shannon! I appreciate it. And I'm glad you liked them. :) ~ karen!
Ok naysayers - We made these last night and OMG!!!!! Simply the best ever hamburgers. We used fresh chuck roast, trimmed, and ground right before shaping. I followed the recipe exactly, then my husband grilled them outside over charcoal. Holy cow. They were just perfect burgers - nothing fancy, just tasty. The kids went ape over them too. :-D
It isn't meatloaf unless it has a tomato-sugar glaze. This definitely wasn't meatloaf. Just char-grilled perfection. MAKE THESE BURGERS!
Interesting... I always use crushed potato chips instead of breadcrumbs & I guess my bbq sauce would replace your dijon, ketchup, & worcestershire...
Whew! Just read through many of the earlier comments and I was startin' to worry there might be a public lynching in downtown Dundas over hamburger vs. meatloaf burger opinions! Thank goodness everyone has calmed down and cooler heads have prevailed and realized that an egg yolk and a few bitty crumbs do not a meatloaf make. Have made my burgers this way for years and it works the best. They also make for some tasty patties fried in a pan with onions and then gravy made from the stuff left in the pan and served over mashed potatoes and green petit pois on the side. OK hungry now.
My favorite way to (very finely) dice onion is in our little electric food chopper. Easy clean-up, no tears, and pieces of onion so tiny I can only taste them, not see them.
Just curious why just egg yolk, and not the whole egg?
Hi Renee! Just because you don't want to add a ton of liquid and if the yolk is the best part of the egg for binding and richness. :) ~ karen!
ça a l air très bon je vais essayer ce weekend