Smash Burgers With Special Sauce
Crispy-edged smash burgers with melty cheese on buttery toasted buns with a tangy special sauce. Better than the drive-thru. Fight me.
Ingredients
- 2 lblean ground beef
- 8 tbsp(1 stick) salted buttermelted, plus more at room temperature for buns
- 2 tbspWorcestershire sauce
- 2 tspfish sauce
- 2 tspsmoked paprika
- 1 tsponion powder
- 1 tspgarlic powder
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 8sesame brioche buns
- 8 slicecheddar cheese
Special Sauce
- ½ cupmayonnaise
- 2 tbspketchup
- 2 tbspfinely chopped dill pickles
- 1to 2 tablespoons hot sauceI like Frank's RedHot
- 2 tspprepared horseradish
- 1 tspWorcestershire sauce
- 1garlic clovefinely chopped or grated
- Fine pink Himalayan salt and freshly ground black pepper
Toppings
- Shredded romaine lettuce
- Sliced tomatoes
- Sliced dill pickles
- Red onion slices or Pickled Red Onions
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix the beef, melted butter, Worcestershire, fish sauce, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder and a generous pinch of pepper with your hands. Form 8 even balls and chill on a plate or baking sheet for at least 15 minutes or overnight. Cold balls smash better. This is not negotiable.
- Meanwhile, make the special sauce: in a medium bowl, mix the mayo, ketchup, pickles, hot sauce, horseradish, Worcestershire and garlic. Season with salt and pepper.
- Heat a cast-iron skillet, griddle or outdoor grill on high. Cut 8 squares of parchment a bit bigger than your buns.
- Butter the insides of the buns. Working in batches, toast them buttered-side down until just crisp and warm, 2 to 3 minutes. Slather the toasted buns with special sauce.
- Get the skillet back to high heat. Working in batches, add the cold burger balls. After about 20 seconds, lay a parchment square on each and smash down hard and fast with a flat metal spatula or press, as flat as you can in one motion. They will sizzle loudly. That's normal. Cook until the bottoms brown, about 1 minute, then flip, top with cheese and cook until the cheese melts and the burgers are just cooked through, about 2 minutes more. One smash. Not two. Smashing again squeezes out the juice.
- Slide the burgers onto the bottom buns, add whatever toppings you like, cap with the top buns and serve immediately.
Kitchen's closed Leftover special sauce goes on fries, eggs and grilled cheese. There is no wrong answer except throwing it out.