A Year of Holidays: Big Bad Burger Bar

Big Bad Burger Bar

I only made one 4th of July recipes from the “A Year of Holidays” cookbook this year, since my husband and I celebrated alone due to COVID-19 restrictions.  And I cut the recipe in 1/5 since there’s just two of us!

The burgers are made by mixing the meat with heavy cream, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt and pepper, and then forming into patties.  These are set aside in the fridge until the toppings are more or less ready.  The Pioneer Woman says to use 80/20 ground beef, but given the lack of groceries available currently we had to go with less fatty ground beef.

For the caramelized onions, the sliced onions are just cooked in butter over the stove.  The recipe says to cook over medium, but I had to reduce the temperature a bit more to keep them from cooking too quickly.

I actually skipped the sautéed mushrooms since neither of us are very excited about mushrooms, but they’re made the same way as the onions.

And then the rest of the ingredients are prepped while the burgers are grilled on the barbecue – arugula, bacon, tomato slices, blue and feta cheese, sliced cheddar or pepper jack (or swiss), sliced red onion, lettuce, pickle slices, and avocado slices.

We also skipped the arugula (it wasn’t available at the grocery store), blue cheese, sliced red onion, and lettuce.  But we did include both sliced cheddar and pepper jack.

Once the burgers are done, pile on whatever toppings you’d like!

Taste: 9/10

I loved all of the toppings, but the burgers themselves weren’t my favorite recipe.  They were good, but not the best.  Maybe that 80/20 ground beef instead of the 90/10 we got would have made the difference, but to date my favorite recipe is still one from allrecipes.com.

I did find it strange that ketchup, mustard and relish weren’t included in the “Other Fixins” menu.

Difficulty: Easy

This was not difficult to put together at all!  For the burgers, just mix all the ingredients together, shape into patties, and cook over the grill.  The onion and mushrooms are simply cooked in butter over the stove.  The bacon is cooked like usual.  And all the other ingredients are already prepared, so you really just need to lay them out in serving dishes.

Cost: Average / Pricey

If you’re preparing all the ingredients listed, and getting the amount of ingredients listed to make 18-24 burgers, then yes this can get quite pricey.

In that case, you’ll need: ground beef, heavy cream, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt, pepper, yellow onions, butter, white mushrooms, arugula, bacon, tomato, blue cheese, feta cheese, cheddar or swiss or pepper jack cheese, sliced red onions, lettuce, pickle slices, avocado slices, burger buns…and she even includes hot dogs and hot dog rolls for the kids on the grocery list.