I have tried a lot of burger recipes in my time- chicken burgers, fish burgers, veggie burgers, fancy beef burgers with elaborate toppings like truffle oil or port reduction. I love them all.
But sometimes you just want a classic, old-school burger. I mean, a classic is a classic for a reason, am I right?
What makes this classic a little different is the addition of what I like to call smashing sauce, as it was inspired by the sauce Michael Smith puts on his Smash Burgers.
I have attempted a lot of special sauces in my day, even the ubiquitous Big Mac sauce, which I just assumed had to be the ultimate burger spread (meh). When I first scanned Michael Smith’s recipe I wasn’t blown away but figured I’d give it a shot.
Whoa.
WHOA.
How did no one ever think to put horseradish in their special sauce before??? How does anyone NOT put horseradish on their burgers?
If you’re not a horseradish fan don’t be dismayed, you can cut the horseradish down to a teaspoon to reduce it’s punch. The sauce adds a big something to the burger but a lot of people, upon trying it the first time, cannot place exactly what it’s made up of (and unless you share this recipe with them, they never need to know) (kidding, share this link a million times, we could use the exposure 😉 ).
| Classic Beef Burgers with Smashing Sauce | Print |
- Burger patties:
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 tsp Montreal Steak Spice
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- .
- Smashing Sauce:
- 1 Tbsp your favourite mustard
- 1 Tbsp horseradish
- 1 Tbsp bread and butter pickles, finely chopped
- 1 tsp your favourite hot sauce
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- .
- 4 buns
- Lettuce
- Raw and/or caramelized onions*
- Dill pickles, sliced**
- Ketchup (optional)***
- 4 sliced of your favourite cheese (optional)
- Mix all patty ingredients together and form into 4 burgers of roughly uniform size.
- In a small bowl, mix all smashing sauce ingredients together and set aside.
- Heat a griddle pan or barbecue and start to cook the patties. Try to resist pressing down too hard on the patties as they are cooking as this will cause all those delicious juices to flow out and dry out your burger. After you have flipped your patties once, top with cheese, if using.
- Lightly toast your hamburger buns and spread a thick layer of smashing sauce on each side. Top with your fully cooked patty, lettuce, onion and pickles and enjoy!
** Yep, that's right. I use two different type of pickles in this recipe. Bread and butter pickes are so sweet they work perfectly in the smashing sauce but I find them a little too much to top a burger with. As a topping I prefer a crisp dill pickle- better crunch and more tang to cut the richness of the beef.
*** Whaaaa- a classic burger without ketchup?! How dare you! Sometimes I do put ketchup on these but more often than not I find they don't need them (and I am a ketchup fiend when it comes to fries)- the smashing sauce provides all the condiment flavour needed.
Now that is one different and delicious sounding burger! Especially love the pickled onions