Ultimate Chili Cheeseburger
3 RECIPES IN ONE! Why eat fast food burgers when you can eat this? Its tender, fresh, juicy, and delicious. Better than anything fast food youll ever taste. Where I live in NC, if you order them all-the-way, this is how they come. Good ones are getting extremely hard to find, though, so after years of searching and experimenting, this is as good as it gets! Adding a panade (a paste of bread and milk) to the ground beef creates burgers that are juicy and tender even when well-done.
3 RECIPES IN ONE! Why eat fast food burgers when you can eat this? Its tender, fresh, juicy, and delicious. Better than anything fast food youll ever taste. Where I live in NC, if you order them all-the-way, this is how they come. Good ones are getting extremely hard to find, though, so after years of searching and experimenting, this is as good as it gets! Adding a panade (a paste of bread and milk) to the ground beef creates burgers that are juicy and tender even when well-done.
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/3 cup white vinegar
- 1/3 cup sugar
- black pepper ground
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 3/4 teaspoon black pepper ground
- 1 large slice sandwich bread (crust removed and discarded, bread chopped into1/4-inch pieces, about 1/2 cup)
- 2 tablespoons whole milk
- 3/4 teaspoon table salt
- 1 medium clove garlic minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 1 teaspoon)
- 2 teaspoons steak sauce such as a-1
- 2 tablespoons bacon grease
- 1 1/2 pounds lean ground chuck 80 percent lean
- vegetable oil for cooking grate
- 6 ounces cheese sliced, american or cheddar
- 4 hamburger buns or rolls
- a&w chili (recipe follows)
- creamy coleslaw (recipe follows)
- onions diced
- mustard
- a&w chili
- 2/3 cup onion finely chopped
- 2/3 tablespoon salt
- 1 1/3 tablespoon celery salt
- 2 ounces tomato puree
- 1 1/3 tablespoon chili powder
- creamy coleslaw
- 1 pound green cabbage (about 1/2 medium head), thinly shredded
- 1 large carrot peeled and grated
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt
- 1/2 small onion minced
- Carbohydrate 164.120017097522 g
- Cholesterol 348.420530565306 mg
- Fat 127.22865704961 g
- Fiber 15.2790445998302 g
- Protein 94.1021608855919 g
- Saturated Fat 46.3835612902812 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (1291g)
- Sodium 3120.60633317286 mg
- Sugar 148.840972497692 g
- Trans Fat 20.7949916558195 g
- Calories 2152 calories
Step-by-step
- Turn all burners to high, close lid, and heat until very hot, about 15 minutes. Use grill brush to scrape cooking grate clean. Lightly dip wad of paper towels in vegetable oil; holding wad with tongs, wipe cooking grate. Leave primary burner on high, turn other burner(s) to low.
- Meanwhile, mash bread and milk in large bowl with fork until homogeneous (you should have about 1/4 cup). Stir in salt, pepper, garlic, steak sauce, and reserved bacon fat; mix until thoroughly blended.
- Break up beef into small pieces over bread mixture. Using fork or hands, lightly mix together until mixture forms cohesive mass. Divide meat into 4 equal portions. Gently toss one portion of meat back and forth between hands to form loose ball. Gently flatten into 3/4-inch-thick patty that measures about 4 1/2 inches in diameter. Press center of patty down with fingertips until it is about 1/2 inch thick, creating a slight depression in each patty. Repeat with remaining portions of meat.
- Lightly dip wad of paper towels in vegetable oil; holding wad with tongs, wipe cooking grate. Grill burgers on hot side of grill, covered, until well seared on first side, 2 to 4 minutes. Using wide metal spatula, flip burgers and continue grilling, about 3 minutes for medium-well or 4 minutes for well-done. Distribute equal portions of cheese on burgers about 2 minutes before they reach desired doneness, covering burgers with disposable aluminum pan to melt cheese. While burgers grill, toast buns on cooler side of grill, rotating buns as necessary to toast evenly. Serve burgers on toasted buns. Build your burger in the following order: Bottom of Bun Cheeseburger Diced Onions A&W Chili Creamy Coleslaw Mustard Top of Bun
- Add 1 tablespoon canola/vegetable oil to a saucepan, add the onion and saute' 3-4 minutes over medium heat until translucent, then add the hamburger and cook until well done. Drain grease from saucepan, then add remaining ingredients and simmer, stirring often, until desired consistency.
- Toss cabbage and carrots with salt in colander set over medium bowl. Let stand until cabbage wilts, at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.
- Dump wilted cabbage and carrots into the bowl. Rinse thoroughly in cold water (ice water if serving slaw immediately). Pour vegetables back into colander, pressing, but not squeezing on them to drain. Pat dry with paper towels. (Can be stored in a zipper-lock bag and refrigerated overnight.)
- Pour cabbage and carrots back again into bowl. Add onions, mayonnaise, sugar and vinegar; toss to coat. Season with pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Juices drip from beneath a charred layer of melted cheese, saturating a toasted bun that holds up against a heavy stack of chili and creamy coleslaw. Recreating this regional style at home demands attention to foundational moisture, particularly how lean beef behaves over open flames. Fat content matters immensely here. Utilizing eighty percent lean ground chuck provides the necessary rendering fat to keep the meat from drying out during a high-heat cook, eliminating the need for excessive oil on the grate.
Incorporating a panade made from white bread mashed with two tablespoons of whole milk fundamentally alters the internal texture of the patty. Meat proteins tighten aggressively when heated. The starch and dairy mixture interferes with that protein bonding, trapping moisture inside the muscle fibers. This technique ensures juiciness even when the beef is cooked past medium. Ground beef cooked beyond medium-well normally suffers from a crumbly bite, but the bread paste preserves tenderness.
Fresh cabbage undergoes a necessary transformation through salting and resting in a colander for at least one hour. Drawing out excess water prevents the coleslaw from weeping liquid into the chili and destroying the structural integrity of the sandwich. Rinsing the wilted vegetable in cold water removes excess sodium before it meets the mayonnaise dressing. Raw onions diced finely add sharp pungency that cuts through the rich chili and dairy fats.
Leftover cabbage and shredded carrots store safely in a zipper-lock bag in the refrigerator overnight without losing crunch if properly dried. Extra chili similarly improves after twenty-four hours in cold storage as the spices meld into the beef. Reheating portions gently on the stove requires minimal water addition to prevent scorching the thick tomato puree base.
