A smash burger is cooked completely different than every other type of burger.
A thick burger works to stay moist and juicy. A smash burger gives up on that entirely and goes for delicious crust instead. What makes the trade work is fat content. Which is why I make these with our Australian Wagyu ground. The Wagyu runs richer and that’s what you need to make this burger work. Our 85/15 grass-fed is the better choice for a thick pub burger, which makes the opposite case for the opposite reason.
3 tips for smash burger success
1. The surface has to be hotter than you think. Not just the burner on high, but make sure to leave enough time for the pan or griddle to actually heat up. A smash burger cooks in about ninety seconds, and all the browning has to happen inside that window. A pan or griddle at 400°F gives you grey meat and a sad little burger.
2. Smash within ten seconds, and only once. The patty has to be pressed while it's still pliable. After ten or fifteen seconds the proteins have set and you're squeezing rather than spreading — which pushes the juices out the sides instead of flattening the ball. A second smash, later in the cook, just wrings out juices.
3. Don't move it until you scrape it. The crust you're building is welded to the pan. A flimsy spatula will slide over the top of it and leave it behind. You want a stiff, thin-edged metal spatula or a bench scraper, and you want to get under the crust before flipping it.
The recipe: Wagyu smash burgers
Makes 4 double burgers · 25 minutes
Eight 2 oz patties, two per bun. One pound of beef feeds four people here, which is the other advantage of the method.
You need
- 1 lb Origin Provisions Australian Wagyu ground beef (one brick), or one pack of the 4×4 oz patties
- Kosher salt, coarse black pepper
- 8 slices American cheese — yes, American; it emulsifies instead of breaking
- 4 potato or brioche buns
- 2 tbsp butter, for the buns
- Thin-sliced white onion, dill pickles
- Sauce: ½ cup mayonnaise, 2 tbsp ketchup, 1 tbsp yellow mustard, 2 tbsp finely chopped dill pickle, 1 tsp pickle brine, ½ tsp smoked paprika
Before you start
- Portion into 2 oz balls — eight of them. Don't compress. Roll them loosely, like you're handling something you don't want to wake up. If you're using the 4 oz patties, cut each in half and roll into two loose balls; the goal is a ball, not a puck, because a ball spreads evenly when you smash it.
- Keep them cold until the moment they go in. Fridge, on parchment.
- Do not salt the balls. Salt dissolves muscle protein and makes the meat springy and sausage-like. Salt after the smash, on the exposed surface.
- Mix the sauce. Better if it sits 20 minutes.
- Butter and toast the buns cut-side down in a dry skillet until properly golden. Do this first, set aside. A toasted bun is a moisture barrier, and it's what keeps burger number two from arriving on a wet bun.
Method
- Get the pan screaming. Cast iron or a flat griddle, high heat, 5–8 minutes. You want it just short of smoking. A drop of water should vanish instantly, not skitter.
- Two balls at a time if using cast iron. More than that drops the surface temperature and you lose the crust. Space them well apart.
- Smash immediately. Within ten seconds. Put a square of parchment on top of the ball, then press straight down with a heavy flat spatula or a burger press — hard, all the way, until it's about ¼ inch thick and 4½ inches across. Hold the pressure for three seconds. Peel the parchment off.
- Salt and pepper the top now.
- Leave it for 60–75 seconds. You'll see the edges go dark and lacy. That's the target.
- Scrape and flip. Get the spatula under the crust and then push, don't lift. Keep every bit of it.
- Cheese on immediately. Cook 30 seconds more. Ground beef should reach 160°F, which is easy to achieve with these thing patties.
- Stack two patties per bun, sauce on both bun halves, onion and pickle. Serve and eat right away. If you wait the crust will get softer from steam and you lose a bit of what you worked so hard to create.
Dairy-free — the cheese is the only dairy here, and on a smash burger it's doing a real job: it melts into the crust and holds the two patties together. Skip it and you need to replace both the moisture and the glue. A dab of homemade olive oil aioli or mayonnaise out of the fridge goes a long way.
5 mistakes to avoid
Smashing twice. Once. The second press squeezes out the fat that was about to make the burger good.
Salting the ball. Makes the texture bouncy. Salt the pressed patty.
Using a flexible spatula. The crust stays in the pan and you've made a grey patty with extra steps.
Crowding the pan. The pan cools down and none of them gets a crust
Lean ground beef. The ideal is a lean point around 70/30.
Smoking up the kitchen. This method can produce a lot of smoke. It's a restaurant technique that was developed on restaurant equipment. Be prepared. Open a window and run the stove fan. If you can do this on an outside flattop griddle, even better.
Quick answers
What's the best ground beef for smash burgers? 70/30 is ideal. Our Australian Wagyu ground is what we recommend. Lean grinds like 93/7 dry out and crumble.
Why smash a burger instead of grilling it? Nothing wrong with grilling a burger, but smash burgers got trendy because no other method can produce as much delicious crust. Pressing the patty thin puts nearly all of it in direct contact with hot surface, which produces browning across the whole surface rather than at a few grill marks.
How long do you cook a smash burger? About 60–75 seconds on the first side and 30 on the second. Ground beef should reach 160°F, which happens almost immediately at this thickness.
Do you smash a burger more than once? No. Press once, within ten seconds of the meat hitting the pan, then leave it alone.