Delicious Summer Dinner Ideas for the Future

There is no end to the number of tasty burgers you can make, but here are 12 that will make your mouth water.

J. Kenji Lpez-Alt composes a column for The New York Times on food and science, and he establishes dishes and appears in videos for NYT Cooking. He is also the developer and host of Kenji's Cooking Show on YouTube.

Credit ... Adam CentrellaAs a professional chef, food writer and cookbook author, I've spent the last 20 years of my career carefully researching and evaluating dishes, methods and extensively accepted kitchen wisdom to figure out the whys of cooking. Over this time, I've run multiple hamburger joints and even wrote a regular monthly column for Serious Consumes called the Burger Laboratory, in which I isolated and evaluated every possible variable that can affect the flavor and texture of a burger.

That doesn't mean you can't intend for something better. Here are the most crucial pointers I've discovered for enhancing your hamburger experience, whether in the backyard or the cooking area. Working ground beef excessive can trigger it to end up being dense. Credit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Top-Rated Gourmet Burger Templates for 2026

In bread, this can be a good idea, however with hamburgers, overhandling can develop an undesirable dense texture. (Including extenders, like eggs or breadcrumbs, or additional flavoring, like onions and herbs, also requires you to overwork the meat and distract from the beef taste, so skip it.) Salting the beyond your patties keeps their texture loose and tender.

Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Salt breaks down muscle proteins and assists them to connect up more quickly. This is a good idea in sausages, which ought to have a firm texture, however with hamburgers, you want looseness. A burger ought to hurt, with a lot of pockets for juices and rendered fat to collect.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Browning your patties deeply optimizes flavor. Credit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Whether you're making a huge burger on the grill or a crisp-edged smash burger on a frying pan, browning is flavor, and high heat is crucial. For thicker grilled or griddled burgers, wait until your pan or grill is hot before including the patties, and prepare them up until they're well browned on both sides.

This maximizes taste while keeping juiciness. Preparing your buns ahead of time lets you get to consuming so much faster. Credit ... Bryan Gardner for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Do not let your patties sit around on the cutting board (or worse, a steam table). Hamburgers are at their finest fresh from the fire, before any juices have had an opportunity to leak out.

Smash BurgersCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Diner BurgerCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Thick Backyard BurgerCredit ... Ryan Liebe for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Follow,,, and.

Choosing the Best Beef for Tasty Burgers

Updated May 7, 2026, 8:42 a.m. CTI have actually constantly been a hamburger lover. If there were any little melty American cheese leavings stuck on the wrapper, I 'd drag my french fries through them (I still do this).

Catch me on the ideal day and I might confess that a cheeseburger is my preferred food. Really, I might say that on most days. And you may say the very same. Even if you do, it's most likely we do not have the same concept of what makes the ideal hamburger.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

I kept some old favorites, included some new ones and continued to leave off the ones I understand individuals like but I simply. Maybe I have not attempted your favorite hamburger. Maybe I'm out to get you (just kidding).

Let me share with you what makes the best burger for me. Let's start with the patty.

When I bite in, I need to see a little shimmer, some shining from the beef and perhaps a little grease running down the sides. When I see a smashburger on the menu, I constantly opt for a double patty. Smashburger or not, the patty must be scorched to assist lock in the juices, however not too crusty.