Taco Burgers

While we try to have a widely varied menu throughout the week we generally only have 4 choices for supper on Saturday night.  This past Saturday we opted for hamburgers since it had been a bit since we'd had those.  Hamburgers require little prep since I buy large chubs of ground beef and make 5 ounce patties with the burger press and freeze them.  So all I had to do was pull out a package and defrost them.


OK, the little prep is a bit inaccurate since I did make hamburger buns instead of buying some.  Using the stand mixer makes that go faster and most of the time in making hamburger buns is spent letting the dough rise.  I use the recipe found here, Hamburger Buns.  This recipe can be used to make great hotdog buns/hoagie rolls simply by altering the shape.  They are so much better than anything  you'll find at the store, both in flavor and texture.


Usually we have Saturday night leftovers for lunch on Sunday but with burgers we generally don't have any.  The main reason we don't have any is that I put 2 patties per package.  Yeah, I know I should package them by fours or thaw more.  Since I had a chub of ground beef to divide into 1 lb packages I decided to do something a bit different.  I made taco burgers for lunch on Sunday.


After lunch was done I did a Google search for taco burgers and while I found lots of recipes I didn't find any quite like mine.  So, I'm taking credit for this one.


Taco Burger


1 lb ground beef
hot taco seasoning, 1 packet if using store bought
4 dashes Uncle T's Devil Sauce, use the hot sauce of your choice if desired
shredded Mexican blend cheese
1 cup salsa
leaf lettuce
cilantro


Mix the ground beef and taco seasoning thoroughly.  Add the hot sauce if desired and mix well.  Form into burger patties.  Drain the salsa of most of its liquid and set aside.  Place patties on hot grill and leave them alone for 5 minutes then turn them over.  Once they are turned over, place a pile of the shredded cheese on each burger and close lid to help cheese melt.  The buns can be split and put on the grill to toast at this time if desired.  Check after 3 - 4 minutes to see if the cheese is melted to your satisfaction.  Remove burgers from the grill.  To assemble the burger place 3 or 4 leaves of lettuce on the bottom bun.  Put the burger on the lettuce then top with 2 or 3 sprigs of cilantro.  Top with some of the drained salsa.  Put the top of the bun on and enjoy.

Fully Assembled Taco Burger

For these burgers I used my gas grill since it's a little quicker to get going.  The gas grill was preheated to 500F according to its thermometer with both burners on High.  Once the burgers were on and the lid closed the burners were reduce to Medium.  I know people like to fiddle with meat on the grill but leave them alone.  They only need to be flipped once and definitely don't mash the burgers with the spatula.

The lettuce and cilantro came out of the garden about 10 minutes before they got put on the burgers.  The taco seasoning I used was my own blend.  I combined parts of two recipes I found online and upped the heat a bit.  I'm still tweaking that recipe but I'm close to what I'm wanting.  I did use store bought salsa as we didn't can any last summer.  We had tater tots with the burgers since that is what I had in the freezer and didn't want to take the time to do homemade French fries.  The tots were seasoned with homemade seasoning salt.  We did the same thing with the regular burgers on Saturday night.

Taco Burger with Tater Tots

So if you are tired of the same old hamburger give the taco burger a try.  You can tweak the recipe to suit you and your family's taste.  Give a try and let me know what you think.


Uncle T