White Cheese Burgers

I only used half the container of cheese curds on the risotto and needed something else to do with them.  I also wanted a burger the week ground beef was on sale for $1.97/lb.  Even had hamburger buns in the freezer.  It didn't take much for this recipe to evolve.

After the bleu cheese burgers, grilling was out of the question.  I could have done these in the oven, but I haven't made burgers on the stove for this blog.  At least not meat ones.  I should not have done it mere hours after giving the stove its monthly deep cleaning, but that's my fault.

You don't have to use cheese curds, but they were yummy.  Any chopped up semi-soft cheese or crumbled one will work.  Likewise, I had mine with the last of the aioli from the roasted cauliflower leaves and some bbq sauce, but no veggies.  They were on the side, but it looks weird to have Brussels sprouts in a photo with a burger.  You can put anything you like on these.

1 lb 80/20 ground beef
4 oz (about 1 C) diced or crumbled white cheddar
*1/2 C minced red onion
salt and pepper to taste
*4 hamburger buns
garnishes and dressings of choice

1.  In a bowl, knead together beef, cheese, onion, salt, and pepper.  Allow to sit in the fridge at least 15 minutes for the flavors to meld.

2.  Preheat a griddle or flat-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat.  Form meat into 4 thin patties.  Meat seizes up as it cooks, so make them thinner in the middle than on the sides.  With so much cheese and onion in the mixture, it's going to take some convincing.

3.  Place patties on the griddle and wait for them to do their thing.  I turned on the hood fan and still got a lot of splattering.  When bottoms of patties are well browned, flip to cook the other side.  If toasting buns, now is a good time to get started on that.  Total cooking time will be around 10 minutes for medium burgers.

4.  Serve on buns with condiments and dressings of choice.

Difficulty rating  π