As we approach the long Bank Holiday weekend, thoughts naturally fall to the BBQ. And, for many of us, this means it's burger time!
They're relatively inexpensive, easy to cook, and a real crowd pleaser. The beauty of a good burger is this: you can make it as simple or fancy as you like.
Can't be bothered to go beyond a slick of ketchup, slice of melting American cheese and handful of lettuce? Cool. Want to make more of an effort? Load it up with smoked pulled pork, crispy bacon, maybe some crunchy onion bits and a homemade BBQ sauce. It's the ultimate high-low treat.
We're going to reveal not only how to make your own delicious burgers, but some of the top ones available to buy in the UK right now, as well as our favourite British burger restaurants.
Let's go!
How to make the best ever burgers
Before we start, we've got to discuss the quality of the beef you're using. As with any cooking, you get out what you put in. Use rubbish beef mince and that means tight, bullet-like, or sludgy, pappy patties.
Seek out your local butcher (or find a good one online) and go for native British beef, dry-aged ideally for at least 21 days. The flavour, as you'll discover, is incomparable, with a deep richness and savoury umami touch coming through. Using premium beef means less seasoning is required because all the flavour is there, doing the work for you.
If you're going to a physical butcher's shop, ask them to mince beef freshly to your requirements.
What are the best cuts of beef for making burgers?
Well-marbled, tasty chuck is the foundation of a great burger. Aim for around 50-70% chuck in your mix. Blend this with 15-30% rich, buttery short rib, finishing with around 15-25% brisket which adds even greater depth. It might sound pedantic to specify cuts, but the difference is clear to taste. Aim for around 20-22% fat content too.
If you're making a smash burger, a good ratio is 70% chuck to 30% short rib with 22-25% fat.
And classic, hand-pressed burgers work at around 80% chuck to 20% brisket.
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What are the different types of burger?
A burger's a burger right? Wrong! As you'll see when you eat out at the increasing number of serious burger joints around the UK now, venues have taken their offerings up a notch, inspired by American street food and diner culture.
Here's some lingo you need to know.
Slider: This is essentially a small burger, measuring just a couple of inches, designed to be eaten in a couple of bites. Often at slider joints you can order a few varieties, giving the chance to sample a load of combos and toppings without filling up.
Smash Burger: The smash burger scene has gone off the charts in the UK - in fact, this style is fast replacing the traditional thick pressed hamburger. Beef is seasoned on the outside and smashed onto a flat griddle where it's cooked until crispy and sizzling, retaining a juicy bite in the middle.
Patty Melt: Rather than a bun, these are served over toasted bread with cheese and grilled onions.
Juicy Lucy: A burger stuffed with cheese.
Oklahoma Burger: Smash-style patties, with thinly sliced onions smooshed on the outside while cooking, giving an extra sticky, oniony finish.
What's the best way to season a burger?
The very best burgers don't rely on seasoning. They're a celebration of that meeting of excellent beef and flavoursome fat. In fact, if you add seasoning to your mix (and leave it for a while) you're going to ruin your burger.
Salt draws protein out of the meat, binding it together, which can leave you with a dense, meatloafy finish rather than the desirable slightly crumbly, tender, juicy burger you want.
Season the outside only, just before cooking.
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How to cook a great smash burger
- Allow around 65g beef per patty.
- Keep the beef cold.
- Get your cooking surface (ideally a flat griddle) really smoking hot.
- Form your beef into loose balls.
- Salt the outside immediately before cooking.
- Smash the meat down with a press and leave it to form a crust before turning and finishing the other side.
What makes a burger juicy?
If it's a thicker burger style you're after, press 80g beef into a tighter patty. To prevent drying out, always use between 20-25% fat in the mix and, as a smash burger, only season the outside.
To keep it open and juicy, don't handle or compress the meat too much, and keep your meat/formed burgers, cold until the point of cooking, so the fat and juices render off during the cooking process, essentially lubricating the meat.
And use a very hot pan so the outside sears, locking those juices in.
What's the best bun for a burger?
For our money, a spud bun (or potato bun) is the best. They hold together well, have a good fluffiness, and are only slightly sweet. We feel the trend for brioche buns has been a bit over-egged. The sweetness of brioche can overpower the flavour of the meat.
Our second choice, and the easiest to get hold of, is a classic sesame seed bun or bap, toasted for texture, then lightly steamed.
If you like the sweeter nature of a brioche, go for a demi-brioche which is less of an assault on the senses, while still delivering that richness and buttery nature.
What are some of the best burgers to buy in the UK?
If you're not making your own, we've got some excellent suggestions for your BBQ. All of the following are Great British Food Award winners, available either direct in store or online.
Tesco Finest, 2 Pork & Bramley Apple Burgers
Edwards The Welsh Butcher: Pork & Cracked Black Pepper Burgers, Caramelised Red Onion & Pork Burgers, Pork, Honey & Rosemary Burgers
Aldi, Specially Selected British Wagyu Beef Burgers
Herb Fed, Chicken & Herb Burger
Spring Lane Farm Shop, Gourmet Beef Steak Burger
Heck!, Minted Lamb Burgers
Croots Farm Shop, Dirty Brisket Burger
Lidl, Deluxe 2 Aberdeen Angus 6oz Beef Burgers
7 of the best places for smash burgers in the UK
There are more great burger joints in Britain than we can count – everyone has their favourites. Here are just a few of ours.
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Black Bear Burger, Brixton
Ooh yes. These guys have taken burger-making to the nth degree – they truly truly mean business. And for them, that's being unfussy, honing in on the quality of the bones of what they make, rather than reaching for populist gimmicks and trends.
All the beef for their patties is grass-fed, from small British farms where welfare comes first. The meat is aged on the bone (for an utterly superior flavour), and cut expertly by their butcher. They take the same obsessive approach to the rest of their ingredients. Bacon, for example, is from outdoor reared East Anglian pigs, cut to their spec.
Team Black Bear make their own sauces, and rubs, cure their own pickles, cut their own fries, and even make their own ice creams. When someone takes this much care, you know it's going to taste great.
Go for their winning National Burger of the Year - layered with cheese, smoked bacon, miso butter mayo and onions. Or the Black Bear (cheese, smoked bacon, onion jam and garlic mayo). And don't leave without trying some of the insane sides like 12-hour brisket spring rolls, or 'millionaire potatoes' - double cooked potatoes with confit garlic butter, Parmesan and truffle mayo. Say what!
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Zephyr Burgers, Plymouth
Despite only opening in bricks and mortar in 2022, this place has already reached cult status on the Southwest coast. Before the teal-coloured surf and skate shack style eatery threw open its doors, it was a food truck operation, based around the owners' obsessive nature to create the ultimate burger.
We think they've got the formula spot on. They spent loads of time fussing over the right cut and type of beef to create the juiciest smash burgers with a savoury crust, sourcing grass-fed meat from one of the UK's best butchers.
If you like a no-nonsense burger made with attention to detail, they've got you here. There are regular specials that smash it (sorry pun intended) out of the park, but otherwise they keep things pure and simple. With the Classic, of aged beef patty, American cheese, sweet pink onions, iceberg and house sauce, or upping the ante with a bacon cheeseburger topped with white onion, crispy bacon, cheese and house bone marrownaise (a gamechanger).
There are wings, chicken burgers, tater tots, loaded fries and craft beers too.
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El Perro Negro, Edinburgh
The burnished, golden, shiny sesame buns. The fillings, bursting with anticipation out the edges. Those flavours! We are obsessed with this Scottish outfit, which has locations in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. We've spent a bit too much time in Edinburgh cooing over their outlet at Bonnie & Wild food hall.
This is another 'simple is best' venue. They source dry-aged grass-fed beef, and many of their burgers are basted/served with bone marrow butter, supercharging the flavour.
Our top picks are the Black Dog burger, loaded with that bone marrow butter, cheese, black pudding, sweet sticky onions, pickles and burger sauce, or the Top Dog, with bone marrow and blue cheese butter, double bacon, caramelised onions and black truffle mayo.
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The Beefy Boys, Hereford
This is the OG location for the boys, who now have six locations, predominantly in the Southwest (their Bath restaurant is another top choice of ours).
The founders entered Grillstock for a laugh, astonishingly winning best burger, and heading to the world champs in Vegas, coming second – not bad for amateurs.
The guys' pop-ups were then so popular they attracted sweeping queues, so they took the leap to open a bricks and mortar location. Their restaurants are a riot of colour, edgy music and cool artwork, but none of this distracts from the deliciousness of the burgers - all made with 21-day aged Hereford beef, sourced from local farmers and minced daily, served in demi-brioche buns made for them, with their own sauces.
A quirk of their venues is you can choose your own burger base. A 6oz trad burger. Two crispy 3oz smash burgers, oniony Oklahoma smash, or fried in mustard. And the sky's the limit – upgrade and add as many additional burgers to your bun as you like (within reason).
Our current top choice (eaten with gusto after a dip in the spa at Bath) is the PBJ Boy, with American and Swiss cheese, bacon, bacon jam and chipotle peanut butter. Oh, and get poutines on the side!
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Danny's Burgers, Bristol
Like The Beefy Boys, Danny's was formed off the back of Grillstock, which they won in 2017. Afterwards they started cooking out of Fierce & Noble brewery, and it's really taken off – they're still there almost a decade later, firing up the grills every weekend, as well as doing events and burger workshops.
Danny's use their own signature blend of native free-range, dry-aged native beef to make epic smash patties, like the cheeseburger, smothered in American cheese, onion, dill pickles and house sauce, or the Oklahoma fried onion burger, with beef and onion patty, American cheese and mustard, dill pickles and house sauce.
Go for a pint of the brewery's session IPA or pilsner on the side.
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Meat Stack, Leeds
The American diner vibes are off the charts at Meat Stack, where you can start the day with filled muffins, a plate of chicken tenders, eggs, pancakes, eggs, cheese and sausage, or a tower of fluffy pancakes, all with freshly ground coffee on the side.
They source rare and native British beef for their smash burgers, which are steamed with their own sauces and toppings and served up with sides like filthy fries (yes please).
If you're a fan of the show, naturally you can't pass up the Yellowstone burger. Double smashed beef, American cheese, baconnaise, hash browns, French onions, Carolina Gold BBQ, and butter pickles.
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Bertram Black's, Felixstowe
This joint opened at Felixstowe's Beach Street street food complex on the town's seafront earlier this year, having launched originally as a truck operation in lockdown – the owners branching out from their restaurant, The Forge.
So much work goes into everything here, from mixing their own blend of dry-aged beef, pressed to order, to brushing each bun in tallow to 'beef up' every single bite.
Our favourite burger is Bertram's Brisket; two smashed patties, double American cheese, Swiss cheese, home-smoked low and slow brisket, beer and treacle bacon, American mustard and pickled onion.
Theirs? The Smokin' Swine, towering up two patties, double American cheese, Swiss cheese, their slow-cooked pulled pork, homemade caramelised apple sauce, pickled red cabbage, honey crispy onions and bacon crumble!
The eatery is also known for its insanely good three-bone chicken wings, smoked and cooked until they fall off the bone. You can get four for a fiver on Wednesdays.
