Smash It Like It's Hot!🔥

Everyone worth knowing loves a good smash burger – super thin patties with crispy edges stacked on top of each other with the meat and cheese melding together on a toasted bun.  Whether you’re cooking them on a cast iron over Meat Head Charcoal or using your favorite electric or propane griddle, smash burgers are always a crowd-pleaser.  After a whole lot of experimenting – patties too thick, buns burnt to a crisp and cheese melted all over the griddle – I’ve finally figured it out and have put it into our bi-monthly dinner rotation. 

First and foremost, the foundation of a good burger is the heat and the meat!  If you’re using a charcoal grill with a flat griddle on top, make sure to remember that Meat Head Charcoal burns way hotter than your run-of-the-mill big box store briquet, so let it burn down for a good 30 to 45 minutes or so!  For the meat, I personally use TeXGa ground beef since it’s the perfect grind and fat content for burgers.  Plus, I love supporting local businesses and knowing where my food comes from.  One other thing I love about TeXGa meat is that it’s vacuum-sealed in super flat packages so when I get home from work at 5pm and realize that I forgot to take it out of the freezer, it only takes 20 minutes to thaw out! 

Here’s the steps that I take to get the perfect smash burger every time:

1)Get your griddle preheating.  Low to medium-low heat is perfect for smash burgers – any higher and you’re going to end up with an unappetizing black meat frisbee.

PRO TIP:  Throw some thick-cut bacon on the griddle.  Two slices per burger is perfect.  Not only does it add a delicious crunch to your juicy smash burger, it greases up the griddle perfectly and helps your burgers get a nice crisp.

2)I like to prep my patties by measuring them out into 1/3 pound portions (1/3 of a cup is roughly a 1/3 pound patty)!  Roll ‘em up and put them on a plate in the fridge.

3)Once the griddle is preheated and your bacon is almost crisp, move your bacon off to the side of the flat top and throw your meat balls down in that bacon grease.  Immediately put a piece of parchment paper on top of the meat and use a burger press (or a small frying pan, large spatula, etc.) to smash them as thin as possible.  They’ll shrink up a little bit so you want to smash them just slightly larger than the diameter of your bun. 

4)Sprinkle some of The Founder on them!  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to seasoning burgers – Meat Head already did it for us!  The Founder is perfect for almost everything, burgers included!

5)As the burgers cook, all of that fat will start rendering down.  I like to have my griddle slightly off-level so all of the juices run to one side or to the back.  Take your buns and sop up some of that juice and put them off to the side of the griddle to toast.  They usually go pretty quick so keep an eye on them! 

At this point, you should have buns on the left, burgers in the middle and bacon on the right!

6)After a few minutes, take your largest spatula and scrape the patties off the griddle and give them a flip.  Immediately throw a slice of pepper jack on them (or whatever cheese you prefer, but pepper jack is KING).  I like to cover the patties with a melting dome but if you don’t have one, no worries!  If you put the cheese on immediately after flipping them, it should be perfectly melted by the time the second side is done. 

7)After a few more minutes on the grill, stack two patties on top of one another, grab that nice, crispy bottom bun and slap that patty stack right on top. 

 8)Break a couple of slices of bacon in half and put them on your burger, along with your toppings of choice, and plate it up!  Enjoy!!