Burger

Sandwich this burger between English muffin halves or serve with lots of arugula.

Our mini-burgers have exotic spices and herbs to make sports day gourmet.

These flavorsome burgers are ideal for relaxed family meals and offer a good hit of mood-lifting tryptophan.

Feed this luscious sandwich to your egg-eating veggie friends when they get a burger craving, and they'll likely think twice about ever ordering a veggie burger–puck again. When you eat it, it drips and spills everywhere in a decidedly appealing way. NOTE: The bun must be fresh. Really fresh. A stale bun will wreck this sandwich.

Vegan When it comes to sweet potatoes, American cuisine needs some imagination, and these irresistible burgers are here to help. Just throw a cooked sweet potato into your trusty food processor, along with chickpeas, scallions, and spices, and buzz it into orange tastiness. Two complementary iterations of quinoa (whole cooked grains and flour) step in to balance the sweetness—and also to hold the burgers together—while upping the protein and calcium content. Green pea polka dots round it out in every way, making this taste and color fest even more fun and interesting. • Be sure to use the moist, orange variety of sweet potato (not the drier, starchier white type). • Regarding the quinoa flour: Don't panic. Just get out the inexpensive electric coffee grinder that you dedicated to spice grinding, wipe it out thoroughly, and add 6 tablespoons of whole quinoa. Buzz for less than 5 seconds, and you've got your ingredient—probably slightly more than the amount you'll need for the recipe. • If you're using fresh peas, they'll need to be steamed or blanched for about 5 minutes. Frozen ones require only to be defrosted in a strainer— a brief encounter with room-temperature tap water, then a shake to dry. Either of these steps can be done ahead. • Begin cooking the sweet potato well ahead of time, so it can cool before you assemble the batter. This is also a good use for leftover plain mashed sweet potatoes. You'll need 2 cups. • Toasting cumin seeds is most easily done in a small, dry skillet over low heat. Shake the pan as you go and pay careful attention. It takes only a few minutes to toast them—and a blink of an eye beyond that to irreparably burn them. You can use the same pan (and same method) to toast the peanuts, if you wish. • If you're cooking the burgers in batches, keep the finished ones warm on a baking sheet or an ovenproof plate in a 250°F oven while you make the rest. • These freeze and reheat beautifully after they've been cooked.

Tart, fruity pomegranate molasses brightens up the mellow turkey.

Pickled veggies give this burger low-cal crunch and sweet-and-sour zing.

You know the Juicy Lucy, right? It's a cheese-stuffed burger that was born in Minneapolis in the 1950s, and legend has it that it got its name when the first patron took a bite and exclaimed, "That's one juicy lucy!" Well, my friend Erin Meister, who blogs as The Nervous Cook, sent me her take on it: a marinated portobello mushroom cap stuffed with a runny-yolk egg. A total umami bomb and, like the Juicy Lucy, a mess to eat. But when you're cooking for yourself who cares if you have egg on your face? Erin marinates the mushroom in a miso-vinegar mixture, but since I usually have Sesame Miso Vinaigrette on hand, it's perfect to use here, too. If you don't have it, substitute 1 tablespoon of white miso in 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar. If you don't have a grill, don't sweat it; you won't get the smoky tinge, but this works just fine instead, using a cast-iron skillet or grill pan fitted with a lid (or aluminum foil).

A burger with a fiery twist. This classic cheeseburger gets a tasty update with the addition of GOYA® Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce. These chipotle chiles are jalapeño peppers that have been dried, smoked,and then packed in a flavorful sauce made of tomatoes and other spices.

Grinding your own meat gives you total control over your burger. It frees you to select the cut of beef you want and lets you decide how finely or coarsely to grind. The chuck top blade has all the right characteristics for a do-it-yourself burger that's got everything going for it: It's beefy, juicy, and tender when cooked to medium (160°F). To further enhance the meat's juiciness and flavor, we recommend dry-brining the steaks overnight before you grind them. See the Cook's Note below for what to do if you don't have a meat grinder and for more about the chuck top blade as well as tips for cooking burgers, see our complete Burger Primer.

Low-cal 'shrooms up the heartiness factor of these patties, for burgers that are backyard barbecue-worthy.

In our never-ending quest for the best burger, we think we've hit on an outstanding version that requires nothing more than a trip to the supermarket and a short sojourn in the freezer for the bacon. Sure, there are those DIY purists who are going to buy several different beef cuts from a high-end butcher—if not butcher the beef themselves from their own grass-fed steer—then coarsely grind it with their own sterilized meat grinder, but most of us just want an easy recipe for a really great backyard burger.
Burger-meisters might be shocked, but this burger does best by being cooked a bit more slowly, over indirect heat. So sit back, pop open a cold one, and let these burgers baste themselves into a sublime place. Editor's Note: This recipe is part of Gourmet's Modern Menu for Burger Bash. Menu also includes Homemade French Fries with Five Dipping Sauces and Strawberry Cheesecake Milkshake.

Portobello mushrooms are a nutritious and satisfying alternative to burgers made with beef or turkey. Here they are accompanied by a spread of pureed cannellini beans for added protein—and flavor. To clean the mushroom caps, wipe them with a damp paper towel; do not rinse or soak, or they will remain soggy even after cooking.

The hamburger might be an easy weeknight staple, but it can also be a gourmet creation worth serving to company—if prepared right. The best hamburgers begin with top-quality meat. Grinding it yourself is preferable to buying packaged meat because you have a lot more control over the cut and quality of the meat you use. Chuck, with at least 15 percent fat, produces a juicier, more flavorful burger than a leaner cut like sirloin. Start with a top-quality chuck roast from the butcher’s counter. Doing your own grinding also allows you to determine the coarseness of the meat. The technique below was developed after much experimenting. Dividing the meat in half and grinding it two ways, one a bit coarse to keep the mixture juicy and not too dense, and one finer to help bind everything together, results in the very best burger. It’s more work than opening a package and tossing patties into a pan, but the effort pays off in a big way. You can add whatever seasonings you like to the meat, but don’t skimp on salt and pepper—a generous sprinkling of each is imperative. Handle the ground meat as little and as gently as possible—form it into patties with your hands, taking care not to press or condense the meat too much—since overworked meat will yield a tough burger. Make a slight indentation in the center of each patty; this will prevent a “ballooning” effect as it cooks, and help you resist the temptation to press it down with a spatula, condensing the patty and forcing delicious juices to be lost. Also, keep in mind that the meat will shrink while cooking. To ensure that your hamburger will be the same size as the bun, form the patties a half-inch larger in diameter than the size of the bun. Finally, because ground meat cooks relatively quickly, chilling the burger before cooking (especially on the grill, as in the variation below), will make it easy to achieve a burger with a rare, juicy center, if that’s what you’re aiming for. Chilling is also more convenient for entertaining, since the patties can be formed ahead of time and refrigerated and covered until needed.

We topped these burgers with smoked Cheddar cheese, but you can use another type of cheese, or omit it entirely. To clean the mushroom caps, wipe them with a damp paper towel; do not rinse or soak them because they will remain soggy even after cooking.

Thai chiles are small, fresh red or green chiles, and are very hot. For a milder flavor, remove the seeds. You can substitute 1 fresh serrano chile. The flavors of Southeast Asia were the inspiration for these lean burgers, which are wrapped, Vietnamese-style, in lettuce.

If your grill is large enough, you can cook everything at once. Give the hamburgers about a 2-minute head start so everything is ready to come off the grill at the same time.