Many fam­i­lies cel­e­brate Fa­ther’s Day to­geth­er with a out­door grilling lime. Show ap­pre­ci­a­tion for your Dad with a big juicey Fa­ther’s Day cheese­burg­er. Noth­ing says I love you like a good ‘ole cheese­burg­er! Here are some tips that I found to be ex­treme­ly use­ful when cre­at­ing the best cheese­burg­ers you’ve ever made.

1) The Se­lec­tion of Meat

Be picky when pur­chas­ing your ground beef, it’s your right. Please note: I’m not telling you to go on a ram­page in the gro­cery store or meat shop. The 80 (lean) /20 (fat) ra­tio for the meat is al­ways a great way to go; guar­an­tee­ing a juicy and mighty burg­er pat­ty.

2) The Cheese and its pair­ing of top­pings

One of the pil­lars of a per­fect burg­er, along with the pat­ty, is the cheese used in it. There’s noth­ing wrong with dear ched­dar cheese, how­ev­er, if you’re look­ing to spice it up, in­dulge in the ‘out of norm’ cheeses. From the boast­ing Gou­da to Goat cheese (yes, you read right. Goat Cheese) the pos­si­bil­i­ties of flavours are end­less; es­pe­cial­ly when you se­lect the prop­er top­pings! For ex­am­ple: A beef burg­er can be topped with goat cheese, arugu­la, thick slices of toma­toes, sautéed mush­rooms and onions and bal­sam­ic dress­ing for a Mediter­ranean vibe or if you’re feel­ing less of a fan­cy Nan­cy, you can just do a Plain Jane! The di­ver­si­ty is mag­nif­i­cent! Once you’ve cho­sen your cheese of choice, time your pat­ty and place the cheese slice (s) atop the burg­er a minute be­fore it fin­ish­es for the per­fect melt!

3) The Bread

Here’s what I’d con­sid­er a deal-break­er; the burg­er bun. The pat­ty could be the most flavour­some thing you’ve ever tast­ed, the top­pings, com­pli­ment­ing the cheese and flavours but once that bun is too thick (or too thin), too crunchy or too soft; there go all hopes and dreams of the per­fect cheese­burg­er ex­pe­ri­ence. So be cau­tious in choos­ing your pick.

4) The Prepa­ra­tion of the Pat­ty

As harsh as it sounds in our lo­cal cul­ture, don’t go crazy with the sea­son­ings! Es­pe­cial­ly when mix­ing in salt to the meat; salt breaks down the mus­cle tis­sue in the meat more so and re­sults in an al­most springy burg­er pat­ty. Salt and black pep­per can be pat­ted on the out­er lay­er of the burg­er, a minute or two be­fore it hits the grill/grid­dle/ pan. Ap­pre­ci­ate the nat­ur­al flavours of meat! With that last line be­ing said, skip the fillers! No­body needs eggs or bread­crumbs in their burg­er. It’s a burg­er, not meat­loaf.

5) The Cook­ing of the Pat­ty

It’s prac­ti­cal­ly em­bed­ded in our blood to con­stant ‘tun the pot’ but with this, I urge you to leave the burg­er alone! It’s es­sen­tial for the burg­er to ob­tain a god­ly crust on each side and for that to hap­pen, you MUST leave it be! It’s no good to con­tin­u­ous­ly flip the burg­er be­cause, with the con­stant flip­ping, the like­li­hood of the burg­er break­ing apart is promi­nent. The max­i­mum al­lo­cat­ed count of flips per burg­er should be two. I hope my tips are as help­ful as they are to me!