To smush or not to smush?

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Smash Burgers

There aren’t a lot of things that get better when you smush them, but I tend to think burgers do. I’m a big fan of smash burgers (and un-smashed burgers). The nice thing about a smash burger for home cooks is that, if you have the right equipment, it can take just a few minutes to go from nothing to complete burger. In fact, the other night I was alone with my 2 year old who was in the middle of meltdown when I started cooking, and I finished making smash burgers for him and me before his tantrum was over. His burger even had time to cool before he settled down, caught his breath, and dove in (eating the whole thing, I’ll add).

There are endless online recipes for smash burgers, but ultimately your smash burger success will come down to preparedness and equipment. You need a large sturdy skillet or griddle, a sturdy spatula or press for smashing, and a good tool to scrape the burger off the cooking surface (a bench scraper, grill scraper, or heavy-duty spatula will work). And you need to have your buns, cheese and toppings ready, because the burgers cook up in a flash.

Of course, if the simplicity and minimal time commitment of a plain smash burger aren’t good enough for you, there are endless variations. Here’s a Hatch Chile Smash Burger for inspiration, where you mix grated onion and hatch chilis into the raw beef before smashing.

The Sauce

Who doesn’t like a sauce on their burger? What if I told you this sauce was special? Anyway, to me, all these fast food sauces are basically Thousand Island Dressing (not a bad thing, to be clear), but in case you can parse the differences, here are three attempts at copycat recipes for you to try:

• McDonald’s Big Mac Sauce

• Shake Shack’s Shack Sauce

• In-N-Out’s Burger Spread

Let us know what you tried (just reply)! More soon.

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