Santa got Pete a meat grinder for Christmas, and of course, we have to break it out every time we want to grill burgers. Grinding your own burger meat means you can come up with your own creations, like make Bacon-Infused Beef Burgers with fresh ground beef.
Okay fine.
He breaks the meat grinder out to make ground beef burgers.
I break the camera out to take photos.
Both jobs are important for blog posts though. Although, his job is more important as far as dinner goes.
The thing about grinding your own meat for burgers is that you have to infuse some fat into them. Without adding fat, your burgers are going to come out really dry. No matter how skilled you are at grilling burgers.
You also want to start with specific cuts of meat that have the right fat content. We go with chuck pot roast. You could use sirloin as well, but the price tag on sirloin is a lot higher than chuck pot roast. And you don’t want to pay for an expensive cut of sirloin just to run it through a meat grinder.
Chuck pot roast isn’t like already ground beef, which has the fat content listed on it. With pre-ground beef, you can get 70/30, 75/25, 80/20, or 90/10 in stores. Each package will be labeled with the fat content.
Packaged chuck pot roast isn’t like that, at least not in the stores where we shop, so don’t worry about looking for percentages. Just get whatever your store sells. That’s the right one.
This is just one of the burger recipes we have. If you want more, check out our list of 10+ Really Good Burger Recipes.
Bacon-Infused Ground Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef
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Bacon-Infused Ground Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef Ingredients:
- 2 pounds chuck pot roast
- 1 pound applewood smoked bacon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
How To Make Bacon-Infused Ground Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef:
Cube your steak and put it in a bowl.
Dice your bacon and add it to the same bowl.
Sprinkle pepper and garlic powder over the meat and stir to combine. Side note: The bacon is cured, so it already tastes salty. So you don’t need to add salt into the mixture.
Attach the coarse ground disc to the meat grinder attachment. Attach that to the stand mixer and grind the meat on 4-speed until all the meat is ground.
Don’t put the ground meat through the grinder a second time in case you think it’s too thick. A second grind would basically turn the meat to mush.
Grab a chunk of the meat and roll it into a tight ball. If you don’t pack the meat tight enough, it will be too loose and will fall apart when you try to cook it.
Use a burger press to shape the ground meat patties. Using a burger press will assure that the patties are all the same size and will evenly and equally on the grill. If you have ones that are different sizes, they won’t all be ready at the same time. And you’d like them to be if you’re barbecuing for a ground.
Be sure to dimple the meat so the burgers end up being flat after they cook.
The meat mixture will make 10 ground beef patties. Each patty will weigh about 1/3 of a pound before you cook it, but you don’t need to weigh them. Just eyeball it.
If you want to make less burgers, that’s fine. Just cut the bacon and meat blend for burgers in half to make five burgers.
Fire up your grill and cook the patties for 5 minutes on each side until the burger is cooked fully through.
Rare beef can be eaten, but rare pork should not. Since you are grinding bacon into burgers, you must fully cook them before serving. You can’t eat undercooked bacon.
But, because the bacon is there to infuse fat, the burgers come out really juicy and aren’t dry even though they’re cooked longer than you usually cook a burger.
We top ours with avocado mayo and tomato. You can add lettuce, onion, or cheese if you prefer. I would just suggest against adding strips of bacon since these already have bacon in them — but honestly, is there really such a thing as too much bacon?
Want more tips for grinding your own hamburger?
This post specifically talks about grinding your own beef patties using a stand mixer. But if you don’t have a stand mixer, you still have options, like a hand mixer.
We have a full post on how to grind your own meat for burgers, which goes into options. Instead of repeating ourselves here, just click that link to read the full post.
Bacon-Infused Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef: Frequently Asked Questions
When I’m buying bacon for us to eat in the house, like for breakfast or in a recipe, I always buy low sodium bacon. I’m not too worried about our sodium intake overall, but a few slices of bacon can be your full recommended amount of sodium for the day. And I don’t want to use it all at breakfast.
But when you’re making these bacon-infused ground beef burgers, you are actually using the sodium in the bacon to act as the salt for the recipe. Since you’re not adding additional salt, low sodium bacon isn’t the best choice.
If all you have in the house is low sodium bacon, you can use it (there’s nothing wrong with it), but you probably want to add an extra pinch or two of salt to the recipe when you add the other seasonings.
The benefit of turkey bacon is that it’s leaner and contains less fat than pork bacon. Which is cool if you’re worried about that. It’s not cool if you’re using the bacon to infuse fat, like this recipe does.
The purpose of the bacon (besides the flavor) is to add some fat into the bacon-infused ground beef burger so it’s nice and juicy. Without that fat, the burger would be really dry.
So, this recipe calls for grinding your beef at home. But if you don’t have a grinder, or don’t have time to grind your own beef, you can make these with pre-ground chuck that you can buy at the store.
How?
Take a pound of bacon and pulse it in a food processor until it’s pretty small. Then, mix the ground beef from the store into the pulsed bacon. Season it, form burgers in a burger press, and cook as directed above.
What can you serve with bacon-infused ground beef burgers?
If you go through the process of making these bacon-infused ground beef burgers, you might just want to fill your stomach completely with burgers. But, if you’re making these for company, you should probably feed them sides.
Need help coming up with what to serve with them? We got you.
Want more burger recipes?
If you’re looking for more burger recipes, we have a few of those for you below.
- Bacon & Blue Stuffed Burger
- Grilled Turkey Burgers With Onions
- Chickpea And Spinach Vegan Burger
- Grilled Ground Sausage Burgers
- Jalapeno Jack Guacamole Burgers
Bacon-Infused Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef
These Bacon-Infused Beef Burgers are the perfect grilled burger. Find out how to make them, with fresh ground beef.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds chuck pot roast
- 1 pound applewood smoked bacon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Cube your steak and put it in a bowl.
- Dice your bacon and add it to the same bowl.
- Sprinkle pepper and garlic powder over the meat and stir to combine.
- Attach the coarse ground disc to the meat grinder attachment. Attach that to the stand mixer and grind the meat on 4-speed until all the meat is ground.
- Grab a chunk of the meat and roll it into a tight ball.
- Use a burger press to shape the ground meat patties. Be sure to dimple the meat.
- Fire up your grill and cook the patties for 5 minutes on each side until the burger is cooked fully through.
Nutrition Information
Yield
10Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 412Total Fat 24gSaturated Fat 9gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 14gCholesterol 145mgSodium 829mgCarbohydrates 1gFiber 0gSugar 0gProtein 47g
Have you tried these Bacon-Infused Beef Burgers With Fresh Ground Beef yet?