My recipe for making very soft double patty burgers on the stovetop in a cast iron pan. Each pound of ground beef creates 3 servings (3 burgers). The goal of this recipe was to make a very soft burger that is warm and very easy to chew, which is some of my favorite qualities in a good fast food burger.
Servings: 3
Ingredients
Burger
- 1 lb ground burger meat (85% lean / 15% fat)
- Sesame Seed White Hamburger Buns
- 6 slices of Kraft American Cheese Singles
- 2 tablespoons of Butter
- Olive Oil
- Paprika
- Salt
- Black Pepper
Notes:
- Any bun that is substantial and not flimsy should work, I have found success with Pepperidge Farm Heart White Hamburger Buns
- What I use for beef: Thomas Farms Beef Ground Organic Grass Fed. It comes in a 1 lb. pack and is pretty good!
Toppings
- White Onion (medium)
- Dill pickle slices (Vlasic)
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Lettuce
- Anything you want honestly.
Step 1
Turn cast iron on the stovetop to high, add a bit of olive oil into the pan, and spread it using a small scrap of paper towel to coat the surface. Then add the butter to the pan.
Step 2
Mix together ground meat, adding a light/medium dusting of Paprika, Salt, and Black Pepper. Mix the spices into the meat with your hands. Separate the burger meat into 6 balls of equal size, and gently coat each ball with a small amount of olive oil.
Wearing gloves (or not), flatten each ball into about a 4-4.5 inch diameter circle. About as spread as you can get without tearing the meat or risking it falling apart, but not any larger than the size of your burger buns.
As a note, the patties will shrink as they cook so don’t worry about that occurring when they start to cook and you are getting ready to flip them.
Step 3
With the pan nice and hot, butter melted, add your patties to the pan. It is okay if they gently touch but don’t let them overlap. After about 2 minutes of cooking, flip each patty. Then squish each of them.
They will have shrunk a bit from cooking, so it is important to smush them here using a spatula or bacon press, or the flat side of a circular Meat Pounder. Squish them.
Let patties each cook for another 2 minutes of until even in color. Add a slice of cheese to each patty at this point, let the cheese melt until gooey.
Step 4
While cooking the patties, grab a microwave-safe plate and heat up the buns in the microwave for 15 seconds. Or until the buns are soft and warm.
Step 5
On a plate, lay down paper towels. Take the patties off the pan and arrange them on the paper towel to soak up any excess grease off the burgers. Doing this will help reduce the chances that the burgers will have soggy buns or buns that fall apart when held in your hands.
Step 6
Plate up the burgers! Stack two patties while hot onto a warm bun. Assemble your toppings of choice and you’re all done. Ready to eat!
Topping Notes:
- Arrange toppings in such a way so that the bun is less likely to fall apart from being damp. For me, this means using onion or lettuce as a buffer between wet toppings and the top or bottom bun. Wet toppings being sauces, pickles, etc.
- I only recommend this because I have long held the belief that the best burgers don’t have a soggy bottom. Especially if the difference between a soggy bottom or not is just a dab with a paper towel.