Preparing Restaurant-Quality Side Fries in Your Home

There is no end to the variety of scrumptious hamburgers you can make, but here are 12 that will make your mouth water.

By J. Kenji Lpez-AltJ. Kenji Lpez-Alt writes a column for The New york city Times on food and science, and he develops dishes and appears in videos for NYT Cooking. He is likewise the developer and host of Kenji's Cooking Show on YouTube. This video and short article are part of, our series on kitchen basics.

Credit ... Adam CentrellaAs a professional chef, food writer and cookbook author, I have actually invested the last twenty years of my career rigorously looking into and testing dishes, strategies and commonly accepted cooking area knowledge to find out the whys of cooking. Over this time, I've operated several hamburger joints and even composed a monthly column for Serious Consumes called the Hamburger Lab, in which I isolated and checked every possible variable that can impact the taste and texture of a burger.

Here are the most important ideas I've discovered for enhancing your hamburger experience, whether in the yard or the kitchen. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

Steps for Crispy Golden Fries

In bread, this can be an advantage, but with burgers, overhandling can produce an undesirable thick texture. (Incorporating extenders, like eggs or breadcrumbs, or additional flavoring, like onions and herbs, likewise requires you to exhaust the meat and distract from the beef flavor, so avoid it.) Salting the beyond your patties keeps their texture loose and tender.

This is a good thing in sausages, which must have a company texture, but with burgers, you want looseness. A hamburger ought to be tender, with plenty of pockets for juices and rendered fat to gather.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Whether you're making a big hamburger on the grill or a crisp-edged smash hamburger on a frying pan, browning is flavor, and high heat is crucial. For thicker grilled or griddled burgers, wait till your pan or grill is hot before adding the patties, and cook them up until they're well browned on both sides.

This takes full advantage of taste while keeping juiciness. Preparing your buns ahead of time lets you get to consuming a lot quicker. Credit ... Bryan Gardner for The New York City Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Do not let your patties sit around on the cutting board (or even worse, a steam table). Hamburgers are at their finest fresh from the fire, before any juices have actually had a chance to drip out.

Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

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Updated May 7, 2026, 8:42 a.m. CTI've always been a burger fan. If there were any little melty American cheese leavings stuck on the wrapper, I 'd drag my french fries through them (I still do this).

Capture me on the ideal day and I may admit that a cheeseburger is my preferred food. Even if you do, it's likely we do not have the very same concept of what makes the best hamburger.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

I kept some old favorites, included some brand-new ones and continued to leave off the ones I understand people like but I simply. Perhaps I haven't attempted your preferred hamburger. Perhaps I'm out to get you (just joking).

There's one ideal burg out there for everybody. Let me show you what makes the ideal hamburger for me. Let's begin with the patty. Can I state I'm growing a little fed up with smashburgers? The finest ones amazingly stay juicy with just a tip of flaky char around the edges, but unfortunately, a lot of locations go too tough on the smash.

When I bite in, I require to see a little sparkle, some glistening from the beef and perhaps a little grease diminishing the sides. When I see a smashburger on the menu, I constantly opt for a double patty. Smashburger or not, the patty should be burnt to assist lock in the juices, however not too crusty.