via Brandon Wenerd
Audio By Carbonatix
Late summer night. Your outdoor griddle is screaming hot. It’s officially smash burger time.
People get weird about what makes the perfect burger. They talk about fancy beef blends, pink salt from a mountain you can’t pronounce, and “secret” sauces that aren’t really secret. Look, I get it. I just had burgers made from a mix of ground beef and brisket blend a couple of weeks ago, and it was pretty mind-blowing.
But… I can’t help but think they’re missing the point. The real secret is simple. And a little violent.
The reality is that there are two secrets.
Secret #1: A smash burger without a mountain of onions is a tragedy. Onions are a necessity, and lots of them. I’m sorry, but if you hate onions, you have the taste buds of a baby. It’s time to grow up. This isn’t a suggestion. It’s the law. You throw a pile of onions on that hot steel before the meat even shows up. It should be so potent that your eyes burn and water like a New York Jets fan on the first fumble of the season. Let those onions sizzle, baby. Let them soften and char. When it comes to a great smash burger, they’re the foundation of the flavor.
But the true, undisputed secret, after heaps of onions, is Secret #2: the smash itself.
You take that ball of ground beef and you smash the hell out of it on the hot griddle. Don’t be gentle. This is aggression therapy with a delicious outcome. You want to hear that sizzle. You’re creating a crust—a crispy, lacey, deeply browned edge that holds all the flavor.
If there’s no crust to your beef patty, there’s no point. You might as well have saved yourself a thousand dollars on the griddle, like the Solo Steelfire 30 Griddle I used in the video below, and just thrown them on your propane grill. That’s the whole damn point here.
At this point, everything else is just a supporting character. The bun is going to rock your world if you butter it and toast it on the flattop. Give that crispy beef a soft place to land. The cheese? It must be doubled. Let it melt until it’s a glorious, gooey mess. For Pete’s sake, don’t go sparingly with the cheese.
So the secret to smash burgers is a philosophy that everything is going to work together, not just a single ingredient. Respect the sizzle, commit to the smash, and K.I.S.S.: keeping it simple, stupid: onions, butter, and a scandalous amount of cheese.
This is what’s going to turn a backyard burger into the kind of meal you want to scream to the high heavens about.
Watch the full video of this glorious process on YouTube.
It’s a beautiful thing to have a big, hot flattop like this in your backyard. It’s a declaration of independence from boredom. One day it’s an epic bacon, egg, and cheese, the next it’s a full hibachi feast, and then it’s a life-changing Cubano sandwich. This is why man invented the backyard propane griddle.
If you’re ready to fight back against mediocre meals, I highly recommend you go buy the Solo Steelfire 30 Griddle on Solo’s website. Use the code BROBIBLEGRIDDLE to get a FREE APRON when you buy the griddle, or a free apron AND griddle shelter when you buy the griddle and stand.
Oh, and if you dig this kind of thing, you should subscribe to my newsletter on Substack, The Weekly Wenerd. It’s where I write about 15 years of building BroBible, and other stuff I love, like fly fishing, live music, and grillin’ and chillin’.