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Beyond Burger Basics: Take your beef burgers from basic to inspired
Heather Travis, Beef Information Centre
You can smell it in the air, wafting over fences from yard to yard, it’s barbecue season Canada! This barbecue season, take your beef burgers beyond the basics. Not only are burgers made with lean ground Canadian beef a healthy option, but with an infinite variety of toppings, beef grind types and buns available you won’t hear any complaints from the table. We’d be surprised if you hear much more than chewing and requests for seconds.
Here are four great new recipes to help you build a better, more inspired, beef burger. Of course, the best beef burgers start out with lean ground Canadian beef. If you’re looking for a more distinct beef flavour, try grinds like lean Ground Sirloin or lean Ground Chuck. These grinds from an individual cut source (like a Sirloin steak) offer great value and versatility. In fact, recent taste tests found Ground Sirloin and Ground Chuck were preferred over mixed ground beef.
In addition to big beef flavor, lean ground Canadian beef provides 14 essential nutrients, including brain-boosting iron, vital to a child’s brain development and necessary for a brain to work at its best all through life. Iron also helps carry oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body – helping you and your family to have the energy to do the things you love to do!
Looking for some help? Check out this great online video cooking lesson for Beautiful Burgers or this handy step-by-step guide. Beware: you may just have the neighbours circling the grill once you start. So you might want to have a few extra beef burgers on hand. Welcome to burger season Canada! We hope it’s an inspired one.
Burger Basics and Food Safety Smarts:
•Cook or freeze ground beef that is packaged wrapped with plastic wrap the day you buy it. If ground beef is in a package with a “best before” date, it will have a longer storage time. These packs come as either tubes or as deeper plastic trays and are wrapped in a plastic that is not touching the meat. Once opened, use or freeze within one day.
•Store raw ground beef on bottom refrigerator shelf to avoid contaminating other foods with drips.
•You can freeze raw or cooked ground beef for up to three months.
•Never thaw ground beef at room temperature. Thaw in the fridge, allowing 12 to 15 hours per lb (26 to 33 hours per kg). Thawed ground beef must be cooked before refreezing.
•Cook microwave-thawed ground beef immediately.
•Always wash your hands before and after handling raw meat. Use separate dishes and utensils for raw meat and other foods.
•If making patties ahead, wrap tightly and refrigerate no more than one day.
•Never cook burgers to rare – cook to 160°F (71°C).
•Use a digital rapid-read thermometer to know your burger is safe and cooked to perfection! For the best temperature reading, remove patty from heat to clean plate, insert 1-1/2 inches (4 cm) of the thermometer stem sideways into each patty for 30 seconds. Just remember: “Your burger’s done at 71!” Ground beef burgers can look done (i.e. be no longer pink inside) before being completely cooked.
•Check each patty for doneness since grills have hot and cold spots. Wash thermometer stem, tongs and plate after testing a partially cooked burger before using again.
•Use a clean plate to transfer cooked burgers from the barbecue.