Healthy Beef Burger

Recipe notes

Don’t overmix the mince

Before you portion the patties, handle the mince as little as possible. Leaving it in long strands keeps the texture of the burger tender, while working it too much makes it dense and tough.

Make the patties wider than the bun

Press each patty out just wider than your bun. The meat shrinks as it cooks and loses moisture, so starting a bit bigger means you end up with the right patty to bun ratio.

Rinse the onion

Rinsing the sliced onion under cold water washes away the harsh sulfur compounds that give raw onion its spicy bite. It mellows the flavour and keeps the onion crisp. Just make sure you dry it well on paper towel.

Toast the buns

Potato rolls are really soft and soak up moisture quickly. Toasting the cut side creates a barrier, so the sauce and beef juices don’t turn the bottom bun soggy.

Storage

Burgers are best eaten straight away. If you want to prep ahead, shape the patties, stack them between squares of baking paper and keep them covered in the fridge for up to 24 hours, or freeze them for up to 3 months. The burger sauce keeps in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Ingredient notes

Lean beef mince

Lean mince is considerably lower in calories than regular beef mince, and it’s the biggest swap that makes this burger lighter. Most supermarkets stock it, but if yours doesn’t, ask your butcher to mince a lean cut for you. Because there’s less fat in the meat, don’t overwork it when you’re shaping the patties, or it’ll cook up tough.

Beef tallow

Tallow is rendered beef fat. It handles high heat without burning and gives the lean patties back some of that rich, beefy flavour you’d normally get from fattier mince. You’ll find it in jars at most butchers and bigger supermarkets. If you don’t have any, a little olive oil spray will do the job, but you’ll lose some of the flavour.

Potato rolls

I use Martin’s potato rolls. They’re soft, slightly sweet and squish down nicely around the patty, which is exactly what you want in a burger like this. Because they’re so pillowy, they soak up moisture fast, so make sure you toast the cut sides before you build the burger. Any soft burger bun will work if you can’t find them.