Stephanie here…

I love burgers. I mean LOVE. I can dress them many ways, eat them plain, eat them at anytime. I talk about burgers as though they are a true love. Ask any of my walk buddies… all too often the talk on our long journeys turns to my beloved burger and how I’d love to have one of those right now.

My mother-in-law makes the best burgers ever. While visiting this past summer, I watched her carefully and gleaned some of her secrets on making these “best burgers ever”. We asked for burgers several times during our visit.

The secrets:

• Don’t buy the lowest fat ground beef. Get the 85%. Juicier and more flavorful.
• Shape them properly.  A flat patty is going to give you a lens shaped finished burger. More on this later in the article.
• Use 1/3 lb. not 1/4 lb. per burger to get a really nice shape out of it. 1/4 pounders just don’t hold up to the heat/shaping as well.
• When grilling, turn them ONCE only and only with something that will not pierce them.

That’s it. I followed this successfully at home and we’re amazed with how much different our home burger experience is!

Now, on the shaping. The little burgers need to be 1/3 lb… yep pull out your kitchen scale and make little balls of 1/3 lb. beeves. Next, you’re going to shape them so that they look like Red Blood Cells!! MMMMmmmm.

So, take that ball of beef in your hands and shape it into a nice patty, nice and firm. Next, start to bring the sides up just a bit so that they are concave. You want the sides thicker, since the inside puffs up when you cook it. Pretty cool, really.

Here’s mom’s method:

Shaping the burger

The finished burger ready for the grill

And sorry, but I ate the final product fresh off the grill before I could snap a photo. Will try to control myself next time and post a pic of these beautiful finished burgers. Bison, beef, whatever, give it a try!