Mouthwateringly Good Grilled Cheeseburgers with Homegrown Tomatoes & Basil Recipe

It’s national cheeseburger day & it’s also the last week of summer. Celebrate this glorious day & these last few days of summer by throwing a couple of burgers on the grill. Burgers have always been my favorite food & grilling them over charcoal on a Weber grill is just a taste that cannot be beat! Fight me over it. Due to this burger obsession of mine, I consider myself a burger aficionado. I have a very specific way to make burgers, so even though a good ole cheeseburger is something most people know how to make, I suggest you read on to learn my burger secrets.

Ingredients

• 1 pound Ground Chuck (I make 3 big burger patties from this amount.)
• Dash of Salt
• Dash of Pepper
• Burger Buns (I used brioche buns.)
• 2 T of Melted Butter
• Cheese (I used sliced muenster & sliced quesadilla cheese.)
• Sliced Tomatoes
• Basil
• Condiments of your choice (I use the standard ketchup & mustard.)

Method

1. Prep your grill. We use an electric starter, so we create a pyramid of coals on top of the starter, plug the starter in & heat until the coals are ready.
2. Place the grill over the coals & heat for a few minutes. Once the grill is properly heated, rub oil onto the grill by using tongs & a paper towel soaked in oil. This helps prevent the meat from sticking to the grill.
3. While the grill is heating, form your burgers. Split up the meat into portions & roll the meat into balls between your hands. Mash down the balls & use your thumbs to make an indent in the center of each burger. This will make sure the meat doesn’t raise in the center while cooking.
4. Season both sides of each burger with salt & pepper.
5. Once the grill is hot place the burgers on the perimeter of the grill & cover.
6. Cook for 10 minutes & flip the burgers to cook for another 10 minutes covered.
7. While the burgers are cooking, brush your buns with melted butter.
8. Uncover the grill & add cheese to the top of the burgers. Place the buttered buns on the grill & cover again. Cook for a few minutes.
9. The burgers are done when the cheese is melted & the buns are toasted. Remove them all from the grill.
10. Garnish your burgers with sliced tomatoes, basil & add your condiments.
11. Enjoy!

Tips

• Using ground chuck is the most important step. Don’t use ground beef, it has too much fat & ground round doesn’t have enough fat. Don’t buy a nice steak & ask the butcher to grind it up. That’s a waste of a good steak & it doesn’t have enough of that good good flavor that a burger needs.
• Also, buy high-quality meat. I suggest buying your ground chuck from an independent butcher. There is such a marked difference in taste between butcher meat & grocery store meat. If you buy the right type of meat you don’t need to season it to death. You want to taste the meat, which leads me to…
• Taste the meat & the heat, sorry Hank Hill, but the heat tastes good. I was raised using Weber grills. Charcoal is the only way to go & no one can tell me differently.
• When forming your burgers it’s important to not handle them too much or too little. If you handle them too much the meat can get tough & if you don’t handle them enough the meat will fall apart. It’s a delicate balance that comes with experience. Luckily getting that experience leads to a lot of burger eating!
• I only season my burgers with salt & pepper. I happily season everything else with my homegrown herbs like oregano, basil, thyme, a powdery cloud of chili powder, onion powder, paprika & my homegrown garlic. However, as a burger purist, I cringe at the thought of ruining that perfect burger taste by smothering it with outside flavors. Bring out the flavor of meat, don’t cover the flavor.
• I cook my burgers to medium to get the best juicy taste a burger has to offer.
• Butter & toast your buns, don’t skip this step. Nothing is worse than biting into a hot burger & a cold bun.

It seems like everyone who has ever grown tomatoes knows just how mouth-wateringly good a grilled burger tastes topped with a homegrown tomato. But you really take it to the next level when you add homegrown basil to the mix. It’s like manna sent straight down from heaven. I discovered this last year when the lettuce in my garden bolted from the heat & I saw the basil just sitting there. I thought it was worth a try & bam the basil burger obsession set in. You absolutely need to try this. Seriously, it will change your food life.

I am known for my burger obsession. I was one of those kids that only ordered burgers from restaurants & I did not like going to places that didn’t have burgers. I have gotten a little better as an adult, emphasis on the word “little”. I will go to restaurants without burgers now & shockingly I am perfectly content eating non-burger foods at those places. However, I still have a hard time not ordering a burger when I see it on a menu. Burgers really just have such a pull on me, I can’t help it! So, when I say that I’m burger obsessed I mean it. Change your burger life, follow my tips!

Like this recipe? Check out what else I basil up: pesto, pizza & basil limeade with strawberries.