How to Cook a Gourmet Flat-Top Burger

Cast iron drops in temperature after each hamburger. Steel doesn't. That's why I created it I originate from a steel household and I understood the material might outshine cast iron for high-heat cooking. Yes. Position your Baking Steel Original directly on your grill grates, preheat for 15-20 minutes on high, and smash your hamburgers right on the steel.

Cook smashburgers at on a preheated griddle or steel. You desire to hear that sizzle the second the beef hits the steel.

Flip, add cheese, and cook for another to melt the cheese and finish cooking. You have to work fast. This is high-heat, high-speed cooking. That's what makes it so great. is the very best ratio for smashburgers. The 20% fat material is important for developing a juicy burger and crispy edges.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Leaner beef will result in a drier, less tasty burger. Stick with 80/20. Crispy edges originate from 3 things: (500-550F) Get your frying pan ripping hot. The fat renders and french fries the edges. Maximize contact with the griddle. Heat, fat, and surface area contact. Master those three things and you'll get perfect crispy edges whenever.

You can bake hamburgers in the oven, however they will not be smashburgers. They'll just be ... baked burgers.

Savory Dinner Inspiration for Grilling in 2026

This optimizes surface area for browning and develops the signature crispy edges. Do not be shy. Really smash it. That's where the magic takes place. Season on the frying pan. Do not season the beef before forming the balls it can make the texture mushy. Definitely. I utilize mine for pancakes, bacon, eggs, grilled cheese, quesadillas, seared steaks, and more.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

As soon as you comprehend how steel holds and moves heat, you begin utilizing it for whatever. I developed the Baking Steel in 2012 after reading that steel performs heat better than stone.

It stores more heat, recuperates faster, and gives you a constant crust from the first burger to the last. Get it ripping hot, work quick, and make some bad ass burgers.

What began as a Kickstarter job (improved by an early endorsement from Kenji Lpez-Alt on Serious Eats) has actually grown into the go-to tool for numerous countless home cooks. His fixation with high-heat cooking goes way beyond pizza. After years of testing smashburgers on cast iron, stainless steel, and every griddle on the marketplace, he created the Skinny Griddle and Mini Frying pan particularly for stovetop cooking engineered to hold heat the method only steel can.

The Skinny Griddle is his go-to tool for smashburgers in the house. He's the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jesse Olson Moore and teaches high-heat cooking through his complimentary online classes and recipes.

How to Craft a High-Quality Flat-Top Burger

It's an easy meal, and it takes simply a couple of minutes to prepare and a few minutes to prepare your tasty frying pan burgers. Pick your hamburger patty, select your cheese, and pick your buns and filling.! Cooking up your hamburgers on a flat griddle is an excellent method to get all the flavor you can out of both your burger patty and your cooking surface area.

These flat, smooth cooking surfaces can take a lot of heat, and they can provide your hamburger the ideal sear, and a well rounded, even prepare. We like frying pans due to the fact that they are so flexible, and while typically they are utilized on stovetops, we regularly cook hamburgers on a frying pan in the oven, and even over an open campfire.

If you're using your frying pan on the stovetop, in the oven, or on the campfire, there are a few universal guidelines to follow when you're cooking burgers: If you have actually cast iron frying pans, they are going to require a layer of spices to safeguard the surface. This makes it non-stick, and likewise secures it from rust.