Ultimate Bacon Burger

Inspiration for this post came from watching a program on television that was all about bacon.  Who doesn't love bacon?  Nobody I know.  I love a good bacon burger but do you use thick bacon, thin bacon, crispy or not crispy bacon?  Don't you dislike biting into the burger and pulling the bacon out of the burger?  Ugh!  I felt like one of those lame infomercials - "there has to be a better way".   The program featured a burger joint called Slater's 50/50 Burgers which if you can't figure out is 50% hamburger and 50% bacon.  That was when the lighbulb turned on over my head.  The concept sounded amazing but I thought the ratio was wrong.  I figured a 1/3 bacon to hamburger would be ideal. Here is how I made my Ultimate Bacon Burger


What type of bacon?  I prefer Daily's brand Ends and Pieces bacon as it seems have great flavor consistently (also cheaper and you are going to chop it up) but any type of raw bacon will do.  Measure out 6 oz. of bacon and do a rough chop (for better results, place into the freezer to firm up) and place into a food processor and pulse chop until it is pretty small bits.

This is just regular sliced bacon and not the ends and pieces which I prefer (I already processed a whole package already).

What type of hamburger?  Since you will be adding bacon, I recommended that you use a hamburger with 20% or less fat.  Place hamburger into a mixing bowl and add the chopped bacon and mix well.

Correction:  The burger would not mix in the processor with the bacon (chopped bacon on the bottom of the processor bowl) so I placed mixture in a mixing bowl and finished mixing there.  Scale says 4.4 oz. but I went back and downsized to an even 4 oz.

Measure out burger mixture into 4 ounce chunks (for quarter pounder patties).  You can use a burger press or what I do is to sandwich the burger mixture inbetween two pieces of wax paper and press with a margarine lid and a flat plate. 

Sandwich meat between wax paper, place a plastic lid over and press, finish (with lid still in place) by pressing with a flat bottomed plate.

After pressing, it should look like this.  Middle is the pile of burgers (I got six patties out of this batch), then cook.

Cooking method.  I have not tried to cook on a barbecue but ideally, for flavor, this would definately be the ultimate but pan frying turned out pretty awesome.

Preparing burger. Buttering and toasting buns are a must!!!  This burger requires minimal condaments, I suggest a little mayonnaise and lettuce for crunch.  Nothing that will overpower the flavor of the burger.

And THAT is my Ultimate Bacon Burger.

How about a side of garlic french fries with that?