We don’t cook cheeseburgers on the stovetop that often anymore. Frying ground beef in a pan on the burner used to be the main way to go, but we’ve come to realize that our burgers get more evenly cooked and stay juicier when we bake them in the oven. So that’s how we most often cook our burgers now IF we’re not grilling.
This recipe bucks our oven burger trend, and it’s tasty enough it might find its way into our regular homemade burger rotation. The name explains exactly what you do to make the burger. You smash ground beef in a pan, pressing onions into the patty while frying both, and you top with American cheese for that perfect meltiness. That’s it!
We have to credit Stephen Cusato for the inspiration for this recipe. He shared a video on the TikTok app (which we often use BECAUSE of the recipes home cooks share there) that inspired us to make these with a few tweaks of our own. He said it’s his favorite way to make a burger, and we now understand!
Fried Onion American Smashburgers
What You Need:
1 pound ground beef (80/20 is a good fat mix.)
1 medium onion
salt and pepper to taste
4 slices American cheese
ketchup
buns or your favorite bread
What You Do:
1. Heat a cast-iron skillet to medium-high heat on your stovetop. You can add just a light coat of oil if you’re concerned about sticking, but that’s not necessary.
2. Mix your ground beef with a little salt and pepper, divide into four sections of about a quarter pound each.
3. Roll each quarter into a ball.
4. Slice your onions as thin as you can.
5. No more than two at a time, place your ground beef balls on opposite sides of a cast-iron skillet. (#FoodieScore Pro Tip: Burgers like space while cooking. So, whether you’re using a pan or cooking on the grill, give plenty of space to your burger patties for them to cook up best!)
6. Sprinkle a little more salt on your beef, then sprinkle onions on each ball.
7. Smash down your burgers with a strong spatula, pressing onions into the meat.
8. If your pan is hot enough, it will only take a couple minutes on each side to cook the patties.
9. Once you’ve flipped the burger patties, top each with a slice of American cheese.
10. Finish cooking all of your burgers, add a squeeze of ketchup on the bottom buns, then finish putting each burger together. Enjoy!
Yield: Serves 4.
#FoodieScore