Next Time you Grill, Slip Your Patty a Fat Slab of Onion

The other day I rooted through the fridge in my houseboat and found a pound of ground wagyu beef, half an onion, and some American cheese. I did as any red-blooded American would, checked that I had adequate salt, pepper, and fuel at home, then took my butt to the supermarket to pick up some burger buns. 

The beef was leftovers from a party I’d hosted. It was the first real party I’ve hosted since moving to Seattle in 2020, and it was a real treat to get a few different groups of friends together to cross-pollinate on a gorgeous (and damp) Seattle night on Lake Union. The nature of my work means I end up meeting a lot of cooks and chefs, and I have a rooftop full of cooking equipment—a couple grills, a salamander, some pizza ovens, two wok ranges, and a hearth—so the party was well-fed with a steady supply of excellent food.

My friend Kevin Smith runs a butcher shop called Beast and Cleaver up in Ballard and had popped down with an incredible selection of ground beef, strip steaks, house-made sausages, and A5 wagyu picanha which he cooked under the salamander (Otto Wilde griller—highly recommend if you are after a steakhouse-style sear at home!). At the end of the night, there wasn’t much remaining beyond a few scraps of beef fat I saved to make beef fat-fried rice (stay tuned for the recipe) and some of that ground beef.

A couple years ago I wrote a recipe in the New York Times for Oklahoma Onion Burgers, a depression-era style of burger that’s seen a resurgence in popularity since my old friend George Motz of Hamburger America began promoting and serving them at his new burger joint in New York City. To make them, you smash a massive pile of thinly shaved onions into a ball of ground beef on a hot griddle to sear before scraping it up and flipping it so those onions end up underneath the burger. As the onions soften and concentrate, the beef cooks through and the bun steam in the vapors, infusing the whole burger with the kind of aroma that you want to keep around well beyond the third date.

It’s a style of burger that works well on a flattop but is harder to reproduce on the grill—the onions end up falling through the grill grates when you flip the burger. You can get there with the use of a cast iron pan placed directly on the flame, but you don’t get much actual grill flavor that way.

Instead, I took a cue from my favorite topping on my favorite fast food burger: adding a whole grilled onion slice to a Double Double at In-N-Out. When you order it, the cook slices off a fat slab from the center of the onion and places it on the griddle with the layers kept intact. I wondered if a similar strategy would work on the grill.

I always say that the key to forming a good burger patty, one that stays tender and cooks up with crispy edges, a juicy texture, and pockets of rendered fat within, is to start with good quality, fatty ground beef (a 75/25 lean to fat ratio is great), then to handle the beef as gently as possible. Don’t knead it, massage it, or mix ingredients into it, I’ve  implored you.  All of that can cause proteins to cross-link and toughen the finished burger, blah blah blah.

In reality, sometimes a *little* kneading is necessary when you’re going to be cooking the burger on a grill where the patties are more apt to fall apart and fall through the grates. I gently toss the meat back and forth between my hands until they are packed just enough that they feel like they’ll hold together during a bit of flipping and clumsy turning.

Once the balls are formed, rather than trying to form a patty in my hands, I like to form them directly on a clean work surface, using my hands to gently pat it them shape. Normally I’d season and cook them at this stage, but this time I decided to slip them some of that O-ring. I pressed a slab of onion into the bottom of each patty, seasoned them, then used a thin metal spatula to lift them and cook them over a raging fire.

After the first side crisped up, I flipped them so the onion side was down, seasoned the tops with salt and pepper, and allowed them to continue cooking until the onions hit that sweet spot where they’ve charred and caramelized in spots, but they still retain just a touch of tender-crips bite in their centers, their juices steaming in the heat of the grill and perfuming the meat above them.

With burgers like this I don’t really feel the need for a lot of toppings, so I stuck with just some Kewpie mayo for lubrication. (I probably would have added pickles if I had them).

Grilled Onion Burgers

Ingredients:

16 to 20 ounces (450 to 550g) ground beef or plant-based ground meat

4 slices of onion cut , about 1/4-inch thick, cut in one solid disk (do not separate the layers after cutting the slices)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 to 8 slices of cheese (I like using one slice of American layered on top of one slice of something else, to aid in melting)

Toppings (or bottomings) as desired

Four toasted burger buns

Procedures:

1. Light one chimney full of charcoal. When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and arrange the coals on one side of the charcoal grate. Set the cooking grate in place, cover the grill and allow it to preheat for 5 minutes. Alternatively, set half the burners on a gas grill to the highest heat setting, cover, and preheat for 10 minutes. Clean and oil the grilling grate.

2. Meanwhile, divide the meat into four balls. Using clean hands, very gently knead them until they just hold together. Press them into patties slightly wider than your hamburger buns. Place an onion slice on top of each patty and push down firmly with the back of a spatula to embed the onion in the meat.

3. When the fire and grate are ready, season the burgers (still onion-side-up) generously with salt and pepper. Using a thin spatula, lift one burger and place it onion-side-up directly over the hot side of the grill. Add the remaining burgers and allow them to cook without moving until they’ve started to develop a nice dark crust and they lift from the grates easily, about 90 seconds. Carefully rotate the burgers 90 degrees and continue to cook without moving until they’ve developed a dark, sizzling crust. If the burgers get engulfed in flames or threaten to burn at any point, rotate the grill grate or move the burgers so they are over a cooler part of the grill.

4. Flip the burgers onion-side-down and season the tops generously with salt and pepper. Add sliced cheese to the tops and continue to cook, rotating the patties occasionally, until the onions are softened and charred in spots, about 2 minutes longer.

5. Top your burger buns as desired, add the onion burgers, close them, and serve.