Smash burgers are the reason half the people we meet bought a Blackstone. They were the reason we bought ours. We used to eat them constantly back in Marquette, and the whole point of the griddle was being able to make them at a campsite.
Then we made them for the first time and got several things wrong on camera. That turns out to be the useful part, so this is the recipe with the mistakes left in.
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Ingredients
Feeds two.
- Ground beef, formed into patties. We do two different ones, one each
- McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning, Fabiola's go-to
- Burger buns
- Butter, for the buns, less than you think
- Bacon, several strips
- Eggs, one per burger
- Cheese, sliced. We keep regular and dairy-free out at the same time
- Frozen fries, for the air fryer
Where these numbers come from
Nothing is measured on camera. The one quantity anybody says out loud is about the butter, and it comes as a correction mid-cook: "you put half of the butter thing in from the bread, not more." That one is worth listening to.
The order, and where it went wrong
1. Bacon first, and it needs no oil. Bacon renders its own fat, so it goes onto a clean hot surface with nothing added. That fat is then what everything else cooks in. Starting with bacon is not just about sequencing, it is how you grease the griddle for free.
2. Level the griddle before the eggs. We got lucky here. The table had been leveled earlier and Fabiola said so out loud when the eggs went on, because on a tilted surface a cracked egg runs straight off the low side. If you plan to fry eggs, level it first.
3. Patties on, and smash them immediately. This is the mistake. The press did not come out until the patties had already been cooking a while, and the answer to "what happened to the smash thing" was that it was supposed to happen earlier. You smash a patty in the first few seconds, while the meat is still loose and will spread. Once the outside has set you are just squeezing juice out of a burger that has already taken its shape.
4. Do not smash the buns. Said on camera and worth repeating, because with a press in your hand and buns on the griddle it is an easy thing to do without thinking.
5. Butter the buns, then toast them. Half as much butter as instinct says. They go face down on the griddle and come off in under a minute.
6. Cheese near the end, and know your cheese. We put regular slices on one burger and dairy-free on the other, because Nathan is lactose intolerant and there is always a dairy-free option going on one of the plates. The thing nobody tells you about the dairy-free ones: some of them do not really melt. Give them longer and put the lid down if you want them to soften at all.
7. Fries in the air fryer, not on the griddle. Preheat to 400, and do not fill the basket more than half full. Our own note from the day was that we should have run them for less time than we did, because crispy is the point and we overshot it.
What we would change
The smash timing is the one that actually cost us. Everything else on that cook was fine, and the burgers were good, but a smash burger that got smashed late is just a regular burger with a flat spot.
The other thing we learned is how much of the cook is sequencing rather than skill. Bacon greases the surface, the buns toast in the last minute, the eggs need a level griddle, and the fries happen somewhere else entirely. Get the order right and one small griddle feeds two people a full plate.
Gear
The 17 inch is a one-burner griddle, which is the size that fits our truck bed and is honest about what it can do: bacon, two patties, two eggs and two buns is a full surface. Ours is the Blackstone 17 inch tabletop griddle, on Amazon.
The press matters for this one specifically. It came in the Blackstone Pro tool kit we bought with the griddle, along with the spatulas and the squeeze bottles. The griddle travels in this carry bag and sits on a folding aluminum table. The fries were done in the air fryer we run off solar.
Everything else in the outdoor kitchen is on our camp kitchen page. If yours is new, season it first. We did three rounds of oil burn-in before this cook and the surface has been easy to live with ever since.
The whole unboxing and first cook is in our first Blackstone video.