Stress-free burgers

August 28, 2025 3:36 PM

A few months ago, my dad visited me, and I made burgers for him one night because he likes burgers and because I know I can make them well enough to his satisfaction. Even so, I've always found burgers to be so much work, so I decided to try and make things easier for myself by buying pre-made frozen patties.

That was a terrible mistake. I think using the frozen patties made it so much more stressful. And it made me realize, cooking burgers on a pan is not ideal. All the fat renders off and just sits in a puddle and then you have a splattery mess to deal with. I had to keep removing all the extra fat from the pan, which was both annoying and precarious. I ended up way overcooking the burgers and they didn't taste very good ):

But a few days ago I saw some french fries and it made me really want french fries, and I also had a burger from my favorite ice cream shop, which was delicious, and I thought, it's time for me to make some burgers and fries again.

I used this ranch burger recipe, which is one of my go-to's. Some people will tell me that I'm really making meatloaf because of the fact that there's ranch seasoning, onions, breading, and egg mixed in with the beef, but I don't care, that's what makes it taste good.

But you know what really made this a successful stovetop burger? I used 93% lean beef. Now I like my meat fatty, but I really wanted to avoid the puddle of fat in my pan, so I splurged a bit on this. (It's okay, it evens out the mayonnaise that I bought for less than $1)

And it totally worked! I cooked the patties and it was super chill! I even used my meat thermometer and I cooked the meat to a temperature of about 140°F, which was plenty cooked.

It did still take a while to prep and cook and clean it all, but the important thing was that I didn't stress out about it, and I didn't make a mess.