This Butter Hack Will Save You From Ever Having Dry Burgers Again

There is little more perilous for the home chef than finding what seems to be the perfect recipe, spending the time and money to gather all of its ingredients, following the instructions with a laser focus, and still somehow ending up with a lackluster result. Were it not for this common problem, the internet's seemingly endless supply of cooking tips and hacks would not be as robust as it is. Some tricks will be more successful than others, of course. If you're grilling burgers, for instance, and want to keep them nice and juicy, you should use butter to imbue the patties with a little extra fat.

This butter burger move (not to be confused with celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern's fast food favorite ButterBurger) truly could not be any easier. Mix your ground beef according to the burger recipe of your choice. Then, form your burger patties to a standard thickness, as the smashed variety would be too thin for what's to come. Using your thumb, knuckle, a tablespoon, or whatever's handy, make an indentation a little larger than a quarter in the patty's center. Light pressure will do, as you're just looking to create a dip deep and wide enough to accommodate a pat of butter. Finally, toss those babies on the grill, let the butter melt into the burger before flipping, and finish to your desired temperature, remembering that more doneness always leads to more dryness.

Once you've mastered this simple trick and banished dry burgers from your grill once and for all, try out compound butter varieties for all different kinds of flavors. Compound butter is butter that's simply been mixed with other ingredients, so its possibilities reach to infinity. The easy formula to build your own compound butter for steak is also applicable for burgers and almost anything else.

Start with one stick of softened (never melted) butter. Whip it with a stand mixer until you've achieved a light, fluffy consistency. Then add 1 or 2 tablespoons of your chosen ingredients max, any more will overwhelm the butter. Garlic, blue cheese, or caramelized onions would all be great additions for burgers. Continue to mix until combined, then roll it in a tube of parchment paper to shape it into a sphere and store it in the refrigerator like you would your unadorned dairy. Slice the compound butter into medallions for all your future butter burger hack needs.