For The Juiciest Burger Blend Imaginable, Add Some Mushrooms
When you bite into a burger, it isn't just the flavor of the meat and toppings that you want to taste. You also expect it to be juicy when you sink your teeth in it, which can be especially hard to achieve if you're making burgers with lean meat. Whether it be ground turkey or beef with a low fat percentage, the patties are pretty much guaranteed to be tough or dry, no matter how perfect your grilling technique is. What if the fix was fungi?
To combat the lean meat conundrum, many recipes suggest mixing the ground beef with breadcrumbs or adding mayonnaise. But while these are effective methods, they aren't necessarily the best. Adding breadcrumbs will make your burgers more like meatloaf, and adding mayonnaise will increase the fat content, which you may not want to do if you're intentionally working with lean meat. An arguably better and equally effective way to go about achieving juicier burgers is to use mushrooms.
What happens when you add mushrooms to burger meat?
Burgers can turn out dry for two reasons: the meat doesn't have any fat to contribute moisture, or it simply gets overcooked. Mushrooms are, accordingly, the perfect solution. They retain moisture, thereby making your burgers juicy, but they're also extremely difficult to overcook. Whereas meat is made up of protein and vegetables are made up of pectin, mushrooms are made up of chitin. Chitin isn't as sensitive to heat. Adding mushrooms to burger meat, therefore, leaves less room for error if you accidentally keep the patties on the grill too long.
Mushrooms also work particularly well for burgers because of their flavor. Mushrooms and meat have one very important similarity: glutamate, a compound that's responsible for umami. This is why mushrooms are often used as a meat substitute in vegan cooking, and it's also why your burger will still taste meaty even if some of the beef is replaced by mushroom.
How much mushroom to add to burger meat
Since the goal is to create a blended burger that still tastes like a traditional one, you don't want to add more mushrooms than meat, otherwise it'll just be a veggie burger. For best results, only use about half as much mushrooms as meat. Then, before mixing the mushrooms into your ground beef, you'll need to first chop them up or run them for a food processor. Some recipes suggest cooking the mushrooms after this step, however, it isn't necessary.
If you're using lean ground meat for your burgers, keep in mind that the mushrooms may be a bit more difficult to form into patties. Luckily, adding some cornstarch and egg can easily solve this. Once your burgers are formed, you can grill or cook them up like you normally would, and by the time you add the bread and toppings, the only difference you'll notice is how much juicier they are.