How to: Make stuffed burgers

How was your Halloween?  Hopefully you've made it to today, all saints day.  I had a busy weekend playing woodswoman... gotta love Dad's giant mechanical toys!  Though all of that hard work outside and inside was rewarded with heaping piles of candy, cinnamon rolls, and home-cooked meals.  My parents and I experimented with pulled pork for the first time; not only was it super easy, but incredibly delicious... I will definitely be making this in the coming weeks, as it seems like a perfect belly-filling warm winter meal :)

I wanted to share with you a meal that I made last week.  It hardly constitutes a recipe, but more a technique than anything else.  Stuffed burgers!  I've seen exotic versions made on Food Network challenges and enjoyed the thought of it.  I even had a plan to finish the mozzarella cheese and chopped sun-dried tomatoes left from the lasagna roll-ups and stew... no waste here.

But, actually making stuffed burgers myself?  This type-A girl would go crazy if the burgers weren't uniform.  That's where a completely ordinary household item came to the rescue: the lid of the peanut butter jar!

I first spotted the technique over at IowaGirlEats this summer and thought, welp, that's just brilliant.  Let me break it down for you.


How to Make Stuffed Burgers

1. Select ingredients.  As Dwight has learned from Michael, K.I.S.S. -- Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Not that you're stupid, that's just the saying :)  Don't try to stuff the burgers with too much, or they'll burst while cooking.  I went with two simple ingredients:

2. I bought 1.25 pounds of beef for this particular adventure.  Split into 5 quarter-pound portions.

3. Line a lid of your choice (the lids for the peanut butter and Miracle Whip are ideal size) with a large piece of plastic wrap, for easy clean-up.

4. Divide one quarter pound portion of beef in half, and press one half into the plastic-lined lid, making a tiny well in the middle for the stuffing.

5. Fill meat well (now there is a phrase I've never used before) with 1 heaping tablespoon of filling (i.e. cheese, pepperoni, chopped mushrooms).

6. Pat out remaining half of ground beef to a rough circle and cover filling, pushing together edges to seal burger.

7. Repeat with remaining meat and filling ingredients.  Discard plastic wrap when finished.

8. Grill (or cook, stovetop) until meat is browned to your liking.  Salt and pepper meat while cooking, generously.

9. Serve with toasted buns and, my choice for that evening, baked sweet potato fries.  Look at that gooey filling!

With what would you fill your burgers?   I'm sensing this simplified method for making stuffed burgers has created a monster...