The Complete Guide to Flat-Top Grilling Excellence

Cast iron drops in temperature after each hamburger. Steel does not. That's why I developed it I come from a steel household and I understood the product might outshine cast iron for high-heat cooking.

I do this all summer season. Cook smashburgers at on a preheated frying pan or steel. This high heat is essential for developing the Maillard reaction, which provides smashburgers their signature crispy, lacy edges and deep taste. Get it ripping hot. You want to hear that sizzle the second the beef strikes the steel.

Flip, add cheese, and cook for another to melt the cheese and surface cooking. That's what makes it so great. The 20% fat material is vital for creating a juicy hamburger and crispy edges.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

Leaner beef will lead to a drier, less delicious burger. Stick with 80/20. Crispy edges come from 3 things: (500-550F) Get your griddle ripping hot. The fat renders and fries the edges. Make the most of contact with the frying pan. Heat, fat, and surface contact. Master those three things and you'll get best crispy edges each time.

You can bake hamburgers in the oven, however they won't be smashburgers. They'll simply be ... baked burgers.

Savory Dinner and Home Recipes for Cooking Success

This optimizes area for browning and produces the signature crispy edges. Don't be shy. Actually smash it. That's where the magic occurs. Season on the griddle. Don't season the beef before forming the balls it can make the texture mushy. Absolutely. I utilize mine for pancakes, bacon, eggs, grilled cheese, quesadillas, seared steaks, and more.

Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

When you understand how steel holds and transfers heat, you begin utilizing it for whatever. I created the Baking Steel in 2012 after reading that steel performs heat better than stone.

Every Baking Steel is still made at our family shop. Cast iron is great. If you're serious about smashburgers, steel is much better. It stores more heat, recovers quicker, and gives you a consistent crust from the first hamburger to the last. Get it ripping hot, work quick, and make some bad ass burgers.

What began as a Kickstarter task (enhanced by an early recommendation from Kenji Lpez-Alt on Serious Eats) has become the go-to tool for numerous countless home cooks. His fascination with high-heat cooking goes method beyond pizza. After years of screening smashburgers on cast iron, stainless steel, and every frying pan on the marketplace, he designed the Skinny Griddle and Mini Frying pan particularly for stovetop cooking engineered to hold heat the way just steel can.

The Skinny Griddle is his go-to tool for smashburgers in the house. He's the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jesse Olson Moore and teaches high-heat cooking through his totally free online classes and dishes.

Savory Dinner Ideas for Grilling in 2026

It's a basic meal, and it takes just a couple of minutes to prepare and a few minutes to prepare your tasty griddle hamburgers. Pick your burger patty, pick your cheese, and pick your buns and filling.! Cooking up your hamburgers on a flat griddle is a great way to get all the taste you can out of both your burger patty and your cooking surface area.

These flat, smooth cooking surface areas can take a lot of heat, and they can give your hamburger the perfect sear, and a well rounded, even cook. We like frying pans since they are so versatile, and while typically they are utilized on stovetops, we regularly cook burgers on a frying pan in the oven, or perhaps over an open campfire.

If you're utilizing your griddle on the stovetop, in the oven, or on the campfire, there are a couple of universal guidelines to follow when you're cooking burgers: If you have actually cast iron griddles, they are going to need a layer of spices to secure the surface area. This makes it non-stick, and likewise safeguards it from rust.