Smash Burgers
Loose balls of beef flattened hard onto a screaming pan for thirty seconds. The crust is the entire point.
- Prep
- 15m
- Cook
- 10m
- Total
- 25m
- Serves
- 4 burgers
- Effort
- Easy
Scale
Units
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 600 g | Form loose balls and season the outside only 8m Never mix salt into the meat — it dissolves the proteins and you get sausage texture. | Smash onto the dry hot pan, 90 seconds, flip, cheese on 8m Press hard for the first 10 seconds only. After that the crust has formed and pressing just squeezes out juice. | Build in warm buns and serve immediately 3m | |
| 2 tsp | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
| 4 slices | ||||
| 4 | Toast cut-side down in the beef fat 2m | |||
| 1 | ||||
| a handful | ||||
| to taste | ||||
-
Form loose balls and season the outside only
8m- beef mince 600 g
- coarse salt 2 tsp
- black pepper 1 tsp
Never mix salt into the meat — it dissolves the proteins and you get sausage texture.
-
Smash onto the dry hot pan, 90 seconds, flip, cheese on
8m- from 1 Form loose balls and season the outside only
- burger cheese 4 slices
Press hard for the first 10 seconds only. After that the crust has formed and pressing just squeezes out juice.
-
Toast cut-side down in the beef fat
2m- soft burger buns 4
-
Build in warm buns and serve immediately
3m- from 2 Smash onto the dry hot pan, 90 seconds, flip, cheese on
- from 3 Toast cut-side down in the beef fat
- sliced onion 1
- pickles a handful
- sauce to taste
Why smashing works
Contact area is everything. A thick patty touches the pan across a fraction of its mass; a smashed one puts almost all of it against hot metal, so the Maillard reaction runs across the whole surface at once. The trade is that it cooks through in ninety seconds — which is why smash burgers are thin and stacked rather than thick.
Notes
- Salt the outside only, at the last moment.
- The pan must be dry and genuinely hot. There is enough fat in the beef.
- Two thin patties beat one thick one: twice the crust, same meat.