Classic cheeseburgers
Thick, juicy stovetop burgers with a deep brown crust and melty cheese, better than the drive-through and ready in 25 minutes.
- 25 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $2.36 a serving
- 470 calories
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1 lb 85/15 ground beef
- 4 slices American cheese slices
- 4 hamburger buns
- ¼ head green leaf lettuce
- 1 tomato, sliced
- 4 slices red onions
- 2 dill pickles, sliced (optional)
- 2 tbsp ketchup (optional)
- 1 tbsp yellow mustard (optional)
From your pantry
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 470 calories, 30 g protein, 30 g carbs and 25 g fat, and costs about $2.36 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No 85/15 ground beef? 90/10 ground beef works.
- No tomatoes? Roma tomatoes work.
- No red onions? White onions or yellow onions work.
- No yellow mustard? Dijon mustard works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Divide the beef into 4 equal pieces and gently shape each into a patty about ¾ inch thick and a little wider than the bun.
Dolly’s tip: Handle it as little as you can. Loosely packed patties stay juicy.Food safety: Wash your hands, the board and the knife with hot soapy water after touching raw meat, and don’t rinse raw chicken in the sink.
Press your thumb into the middle of each patty to make a shallow dent.
Dolly’s tip: Burgers puff up as they cook. The dent keeps them flat instead of ball-shaped.Wash the lettuce and pull off 4 leaves. the tomato and onion.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Heat a large over medium-high for 2 minutes. Just before cooking, sprinkle both sides of the patties with the salt and pepper.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Medium-high heat
Dolly’s tip: Salt right before they hit the pan. Salted early, the meat turns firm and bouncy.Lay the patties in the hot pan and cook 4 minutes without moving them, until a deep crust forms underneath.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Medium-high heatTimer: 4 min
Dolly’s tip: Don’t press them with the spatula. That squeezes out the juice.Flip and cook 3 to 4 minutes more.
Medium-high heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Lay a slice of cheese on each for the last minute and cover the pan so it . They’re done at 160°F.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Medium-high heat
Food safety: Ground beef, pork and lamb are done at 160°F. When it’s cooked through there’s no pink left anywhere in the pan.
Move the burgers to a plate, then toast the buns cut side down in the pan for about 1 minute, until .
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium heatTimer: 1 min
Build each burger with lettuce, tomato, onion, the patty, and pickles, ketchup and mustard if you like.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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