The Best Hamburger You'll Ever Make

I'm Frank Proto,

professional chef and culinary instructor,

and today I'm gonna show you how to make

the best burgers at home, Frank style.

[uptempo music]

[Frank laughs]

We're gonna go over techniques the pros use

to make perfect burgers at home.

This is Burgers 101.

Making a burger is a simple task

with a few techniques.

You don't need to go crazy.

For me, that makes the perfect burger.

Most people think of grilling season,

and that's when they make burgers,

but I make them all year round.

As long as you have a saute pan,

you can make a delicious burger.

If you only watch one video on how to make a burger,

it's gonna be this one,

and you will make a perfect burger every time.

[mellow music]

In front of me, I have some 80/20 ground beef.

Chef, what is 80/20 ground beef?

It's 80% meat, 20% fat,

which is a really, really perfect ratio

for a delicious burger.

A lot of people are afraid of fat,

but in the case of hamburgers, fat is key.

If you get something that's too lean,

your burger is a little crumbly and dry.

If you get something with too much fat,

you end up with a greasy burger.

I do not buy pre-made patties

'cause I have no idea what's going in them.

I have a pound of beef,

and what I'm gonna do is quarter-pound patties.

I think a quarter-pound patty

for a regular grilled burger is the perfect amount.

So all you really have to do

is break this into four separate lumps.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

If you want to be more precise, grab yourself a scale.

Get it into a ball, and I'm gonna just start working it.

And basically I have a ball,

and I'm slapping it into my hand.

You don't have to go for a long time.

It doesn't take a lot to kind of work this,

but I'm just gonna kind of slap it together.

And you can see that when I press down on it,

it forms a nice patty.

If I do this, look what happens.

I'm not working it and I'm forming it into a patty,

but once I put this on the grill,

it's just gonna kind of fall apart.

And then what I'm gonna do

is I'm really gonna flatten it out into a nice patty.

I like my patties to be fairly thin.

It's gonna shrink a little,

so I go a little bit bigger than I think I'm gonna need

so that it fits on my bun.

So I'm just gonna pat it out.

What I like to do is work the meat,

'cause the meat fibers kind of mess with each other,

and that mesh is gonna hold in your juices and your fat.

The meat is cold, it should always be cold.

It's not gonna stick to your hands if your meat is cold.

I'm not seasoning my meat beforehand.

I am not making meatloaf, I'm making burgers.

The other thing is is that when you season

ground beef like this, it tends to get a little rubbery.

So I like to season right before I put it on the grill,

and not before.

Patties are formed, let's prep our toppings.

[mellow music continues]

Let's get into the toppings.

The first thing I'm gonna talk about is an onion.

You can do raw onion on burgers.

I do like raw onion on hamburgers,

but for this one, I'm going to put it on my burger

and cook it with the burger.

The onion cooks,

and the meat juices gets a little caramelized.

It's a little sweet.

It just accents that beef so well.

When I slice onions,

I like to take the top and the bottom off.

People are like, Oh, why do you do that?

I'm a chef in restaurants,

and I pretty much do everything for speed.

The top and the bottom of the onion

I can use for stock if I want to.

I like to take my onion and cut it in half-moons.

[knife thudding]

I feel when you cut the onions in half-moons,

you're basically cutting across the grain of the onion,

and the onion kind of is a little easier to eat.

It just kind of melts away when you bite into it.

So I'm gonna slice my onions fairly thin.

[knife thudding]

And I do use American cheese.

I have white American here,

and you'll also notice that it's not wrapped in plastic.

When I get white American cheese, I go to the deli section

and I have them slice it for me.

It melts really nice, it has good flavor,

and it's a great accent to our burger.

One thing I do agree with is lettuce on a burger.

I like lettuce, I like the crunch.

It adds a little contrast in temperature.

Tomatoes are a whole other story for me.

A lot of people might disagree with me,

but I do not like tomatoes on my burger in this form.

Tomatoes in ketchup form, good.

Tomatoes in this form, too slippery,

a little slimy, as far as I'm concerned.

And when you take that bite, the bun tends to slip a lot.

I also have ketchup and mayonnaise,

and what I like to do with this actually

is I get my ketchup and mayonnaise

and I make a little sauce out of it.

Equal amounts ketchup and mayo.

To me, this is a really nice burger sauce.

Straight ketchup is good, but I think ketchup and mayo,

like, there's something about the combination of these two

that just make it so much better.

It's kind of like my secret sauce,

but there's really not much secret there.

If you like a little spice, put a little hot sauce

or sriracha in there.

One of the other toppings that I think are necessary

on a burger are dill pickles.

These, to me, are the perfect dill pickles for a burger.

I do not like big slices of dill pickles.

It kind of goes back to the whole tomato thing,

they slip, they slide.

I also think they're a little watery.

So I buy these, and they are mini dill pickles.

I want you to look at this, right?

Look at that pickle.

It's not only adorable,

it's the perfect size pickle for my burger.

So you take your pickles

and you slice them into little coins.

This way, when you take that bite of your burger,

you're getting a little bite of pickle in every single bite.

This is one of my favorite things to do.

I do this whenever I do bacon on a burger,

I cut it small so that I'm not biting my burger

and everything's sliding out.

With these little mini dills,

it gives you a great pop of dill pickle flavor

in every single bite.

If you look at the center of these,

there's not a lot of seeds in there.

And that's the thing that always threw me off

with dill pickles, is that the seeds are kind of mushy

and slimy, and I don't like it.

But these little pickles do not have those seeds in there,

and I love it.

[mellow music continues]

It's time to cook our burger.

Now, there's a couple of things I want to talk about

before we start.

I'm cooking in a stainless steel pan.

You can use whatever pan you have.

I feel like stainless steel is perfect for this.

We get good caramelization,

and it's a pan that most people will have.

A couple of things you gotta think about

is that if you're cooking in a pan,

you want to have a good fan.

Whether you have a vent hood,

or what I used to do when I lived in a small apartment,

I would open the window, put a fan in the window

and exhaust it out.

First thing I want to do is get my pan hot.

So I'm gonna start on high heat,

and I'm gonna preheat my pan.

If I throw stuff in here now

and it's not preheated, everything's gonna stick

and it's gonna be a mess.

My pan is getting hot.

I'm using a neutral oil.

You can use whatever oil you're comfortable with.

I tend to use a neutral vegetable oil.

If I have chicken fat or beef fat, even better.

And I'm not gonna put a lot of oil in,

'cause my burgers have some fat.

I'm just gonna coat.

If you look at the pan,

the pan is just coated on the bottom.

The oil starts to get ripply

when it's getting to the right temperature.

And I'm gonna look for small wisps of smoke.

I'm gonna season my burgers,

and this pan will fit two burgers.

Season up high so we get a good dispersion,

because when you bite into the burger,

you're gonna get that saltiness

and then you're gonna get the tender meat inside.

And when I put my burgers in,

I'm gonna drop them away from me towards the camera

so that if I get any oil splash,

it's splashing away from me and not on me.

So we're still on that medium-high heat,

and I think we're good.

We're getting a little smoky, it's okay.

While my burgers are sitting there, I'm gonna take my onions

and put them on top of my burger so they start to cook.

When I flip them, they will start to caramelize,

and that's where we're gonna get that nice,

delicious oniony flavor.

So don't be shy with those.

And literally just a little pinch of salt

on my onions so they're seasoned.

Seasoning is so important,

and I season throughout my process.

Burgers need salt.

That crust on the outside is super important,

so don't be afraid to liberally season.

One of the things that people tend to do here

is start pressing down on things.

Don't press down on things.

All you're doing with the burgers

when you press down on them

is starting to squeeze the juices out.

I have a metal spatula.

I'm gonna get under my burger,

and I'm gonna give it a nice flip.

And all I'm gonna do is do a light press

to make sure that my onions stay on the burger.

I'm not squeezing it.

A light press just to press my onions into my burger.

How I assure that it's not overcooked

and undercooked on the inside

is that I start to see juice come out,

which means my burger is cooking on the inside.

You don't want all the juice to come out.

They're not super red and bloody,

they're gonna get a little more on the clear side,

but for the most part, this burger should only take

less than seven minutes.

It should probably take about six to eight minutes.

I'm gonna add my cheese right now on top of the burger.

I want my cheese to melt, and I like two slices.

My cheese goes on.

And what I'm gonna do here

is I'm gonna basically steam my bun at this time.

I take the top bun and the bottom bun,

and I put 'em on top of my burger.

So I'm gonna get some of that steam heating my bun up.

I think potato buns are the best.

They're tender, they're slightly sweet,

and they don't crumble under the pressure

of eating the burger.

My wife is a big toasted bun person.

I don't like toasted buns.

I do kind of like them a little steamy and warm,

so this is gonna do that.

If you've ever been to a place called White Castle,

this is what they do, and that's where I got the idea.

But I want the cheese to melt

and my buns to get nice and warm.

I'm aiming for a medium burger.

I do not like rare burgers.

I feel like they're like steak tartar,

and I don't really want that.

So I'm aiming for a medium.

I think we're good.

I'm gonna take it off.

I kind of feel this is medium.

I'm using timing, I'm using my senses.

If you're really nervous

about your burger being the right temperature,

get a thermometer.

But for the most part, I'm just going on pure instinct.

I'm gonna take my burgers out, flip it over.

I'm gonna just put it on this over here to rest

while we get things to plate this up.

Our onions are nice and caramelized,

our buns got nice and steamy, and now we can plate it up.

[mellow music continues]

Time to assemble the burger.

And as with everything, as a chef, you think things through.

And I always think about how is my guest,

or the people I'm serving,

how are they going to eat this burger,

and how is it gonna be the best experience for them?

At home, normally everyone makes their own toppings.

But if I'm cooking for you, I'm putting the toppings on.

So basically I don't want anything sliding around.

So when I open my burger, I want to put the ketchup

and mayonnaise mixture onto the bun.

Not only will this mixture kind of protect the bun a little

from getting soggy,

it's also gonna kinda hold things together.

If I put that ketchup

and mayonnaise mixture here,

it makes everything slick and slidey.

And I don't want that.

And I'm gonna use my pickles as anchors too.

If I put my pickles on here,

it's almost like little speed bumps

that are gonna hold my burger together.

I'm gonna use lettuce.

Usually with lettuce.

I try and use one really nice leaf just to add some crunch.

Throw that on top, and then we can put this all together.

If you like tomatoes, that's totally up to you,

put it on your burger.

I usually put 'em on the table

because I know there's a lot of people that like them,

but I keep them aside.

What I would actually probably do is put some salt on 'em

and eat 'em [laughs] just like that,

and not eat 'em on my burger.

And this is how I make the perfect burger at home.

After all this talk and all this cooking,

it is time to taste.

I like to get a good stance on this, right?

You don't want to get it all over you,

so I like to kinda, like, get in there, get the burger.

You're gonna have to squeeze it together just a little,

and get a good bite in there.

[mellow music continues]

Hmm, the thing I love about this burger

is you get a little bit of everything in every bite.

It's delicious.

You get a little bit of the burger,

you get the cheese, you get it all over your face. [laughs]

And you get some of those pickles, the lettuce,

and it's gonna be probably one of the most

enjoyable burgers you've ever had.

You'll notice that when I took that big bite,

it didn't fall apart.

It held together.

This burger is definitely better than a restaurant burger

because not only did you make it

with your own hands with love,

you had control over the ingredients.

You chose the ingredients,

all the best ingredients, and you put a little love in it.

You had it in your pocket here, you sprinkle a little on,

it makes it that much better.

[uptempo music]

[camera beeps] Today I'm gonna show you

how to make the best burgers at home, Frank style.

Oh, Frank's style. [camera beeps]

[all laugh]