When I wanted to get some advice about grilling the best grassfed burgers at home, I turned to my friend Lynne Curry, who literally wrote the book on cooking with grassfed beef. (Her book, Pure Beef: An Essential Guide to Artisan Meat with Recipes for Every Cut, has just been rereleased should you want a copy.) Fortunately she had just written a post about burgers on her Forage blog, and I asked if I could share it with all of you.
At last, it’s grilling season!
(I know you have already cleaned the old ashes/ grate of your grill, filled the propane tank and checked the lines if you use gas or purchased plenty of hardwood charcoal—right?)
In celebration, I’ve compiled everything I know about grilling grassfed burgers. For a quick primer, check out my previous posts on perfect grassfed burgers:
5 Quick Facts for Perfect Grassfed Burgers at Home, Part 1
5 Quick Facts for Perfect Grassfed Burgers at Home, Part 2
Here’s what’s included in this post:
What's Different About Grass-Fed Burgers
By now, you’ve certainly encountered grassfed ground beef wherever you shop. And maybe you’ve even made the switch because of the reasons I touched on in Part 1—namely the traceability and quality of grassfed beef.
You feel good about buying grassfed beef for your backyard barbecue, but how confident do you feel about grilling it? I’m here to help.
Most important to me is that the beef I buy comes from animals raised for their whole lives on pasture. And it supports family farms, not factory farms.
Maybe for you it’s the composition of good fats and the overall nutritional profile of grassfed over conventional beef. Whatever your reasons, grassfed beef is a completely different animal when it comes to grilling.
Here’s why.
The Lean Factor
Every cut of grass-fed beef is more susceptible to overcooking simply because it is extra-lean. Ground beef from pasture-raised animals is typically 85 percent to 90 percent lean, far less fatty than the 70 percent lean meat many burger connoisseurs recommend.
A burger that fits the bun is essential.
Less fat means that there’s less insulation to protect the proteins and baste the meat internally. So how do you grill a juicy grassfed burger?
Some home cooks blend egg, milk and bread crumbs into their ground grass-fed beef as insurance against dryness. Shredded or diced cheese, sautéed vegetables and minced pancetta are other mix-ins that can help protect the burgers from heat and keep them juicy.
Since I prefer my hamburgers to be 100 percent grass-fed beef, I do nothing but season them well with kosher salt just before cooking.
And I cook them over high heat, but more on that in a moment.
How To Form Hamburger Patties
Many recipes caution that over-handling ground beef will make hamburgers tough. This warning can cause cooks to barely form patties at all, resulting in scraggly, lumpy burgers that don’t fit the buns.
The truth is that the grinding process forces beef through a die cutter and minces every strand of connective tissue, making the meat tender enough to eat raw à la steak tartare.
The key is to handle the ground beef just enough to shape it without compressing it like a meatball, and without melting the fat with the heat of your hands. If you prefer, you can use a jar lid or one of the burger molds on the market.
I like to form the patties a few hours before cooking (but I do not salt them until I’m ready to cook because the salt will draw out the moisture.).
My ideal hamburger is 1/3 pound of meat (about 5 ounces) shaped into a uniform disk about 1 inch thick. I make it wide enough to fit within the bun, roughly 5 inches.
Now, the one sure way to make your burger dry is by pressing on them with a spatula while grilling and squeezing out all the juices. But again, I get ahead of myself.
Over-Handling Versus Under-Handling
Keeping that fat intact is key to a tender and juicy burger. So if you handle the ground beef for too long and it starts sticking to your hands, then your burger will be compromised.
I’ve realized that shaping hamburgers is a lot like making pie dough. People have been warned for so long about not overhandling the dough that they tend to underhandle it. So they end up with dry, raggy-edged pie crust.
Same is true with the burgers. Try this:
- Shape nicely uniform discs of ground beef while keeping contact to a minimum. I use a scale to portion the ground beef. But if you have a one-pound package of ground beef, it’s easy to eyeball it into thirds for 1/3-pound burgers, or fourths for 1/4-pound burgers.
- Then take each piece in your hands and press it while spinning it around like you’re making mini-pizza about 5 inches wide and 1 inch thick (okay, a very thick mini-pizza).
- Put it on a plate and use your thumb to make an indentation in the center so that when the patty expands during grilling, it won’t blow up into a burger ball. I have witnessed too many burger balls at backyard barbecues, and it’s a sad sight.
And now that you have your burger patties ready to go on the grill, here's how to cook them to perfection (plus toppings that will put them…well…over the top)!
All photos courtesy Lynne Curry.
is going to do just that. Along with her friend and fellow author Cheryl Sternman Rule and the transcendent talents of chef Anthony Cafiero, she's putting on what's promised to be an omnivorous evening comprised of dishes from her book and 
Rule's compendium of cooking with fresh, local fruits and vegetables. (You may know Rule from her award-winning blog, 
Co-founder with husband Matt of that palace of pastry pleasures, Baker & Spice in Multnomah Village, this to-be-classic contains timeless recipes for cupcakes, flips, rolls, layer, angel, bundt, chiffon and icebox cakes for today's sweet tooth. I'm a huge fan of her first book, 
which vies with a couple of other fave cooking tomes on my shelf for the honor of most well-thumbed. As if you needed more than cake and champagne to draw you in, they'll also be offering 20% off the cover price of both books at the event.
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