Bacon Cheese Patty Melts

Bacon Cheese Patty Melt

     Last week, my buddy Dyal made some Bacon Cheese Patty Melts on The Barbecue Bible Forum and they looked so good I knew that I was going to have to make one for myself. I like hamburger buns as much as the next guy, but sometimes I like my burgers on some grilled, toasted bread.

Fresh ground beef

     Do you like bacon? Do you like burgers? Do you like bacon on your burger? How about bacon IN your burger? I picked up 3 lbs of chuck to grind, some for these burgers and some just to have later on. When I was cubing up the chuck prior to grinding, I really wasn’t liking the fat content of this particular chuck. For burgers, I like to have about 20% fat and this wasn’t cutting it. How could I up the fat percentage? How about throwing some bacon in while the chuck was being ground up? This being the first time trying it, I only added in 5 strips of bacon. The meat got a double grind through the 3/8″ plate, with some Dizzy Pig Cow Lick and some Cluck and Squeal Beef Specific Rub mixed in after the first grind for some extra flavor.

Onion Patty

   For these burgers, we used 1 lb of meat to shape 4 patties extra thin. In hindsight, that was way more that we should have, but if you have a big appetite, knock yourself out. Mrs. G likes grilled onions on her burger and decided to press the onion right into her patties prior to grilling.

On to the Egg

     The patties went on to the Egg for a direct grill at 450F.

Halfway done

     Since we formed these patties pretty thin, I knew they were going to grill up pretty fast. I flipped them after 3 minutes.

Mrs. G’s burger

     A few minutes later, and the patties were done. At this point, Mrs. G was able to assemble her burger, but I had a few more steps to go. I started by warming up a pan and toasting lightly toasting two slices of bread on one side so it would hold up to the juiciness of the burger and wouldn’t get soggy. I then buttered the other side of the slices of bread, assembled my burger (with the toasted side on the inside of the burger) and grilled it just like you would do a grilled cheese sandwich.

Patty Melt with some tots

     The burgers came out really good and how could they not with beef, bacon and cheese? I think the addition of the bacon added in the necessary fat to keep them from drying out while cooking, but didn’t really add any additional flavor that I could taste, although with the toast, two slices of cheese, bacon and the condiments, it might just have been masked. Taking the time to toast the inside of the bread really helped them from becoming soggy and I recommend you don’t skip that step. I think the only thing I would change next time is to make the patties smaller. A half pound of beef (pre-cooked weight) is really more than I need to be eating. And maybe just use one slice of cheese, instead of two. Sometimes its ok to be a little bad, though. 😉

How can you beat a good ole patty melt?

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