There are two ways to know family’s coming over: the lawn gets a fresh set of stripes and the griddle gets hot. When Ben Palmer’s brother—a fellow lawn guy—requested smash burgers for a family dinner, that meant first firing up the Exmark Radius X-Series to lay down the stripes. Then, it’s all eyes on the flattop. In this Backyard Life video, the pitmaster behind Grill This Smoke That shows that a great smash burger recipe doesn’t come down to a secret ingredient. It starts with sequence: what goes on the griddle first, when to smash, when to flip, and why a clean, dry cooking surface is the difference between a gray patty and a deep brown crust.
Bacon Goes Down First
Every good griddle cook starts with a plan, and this one starts with bacon—mainly because it takes the longest. Ben loads the griddle down with strips, gives them a flip once they’re about halfway done, and pulls them off to the side when they’re finished.
There’s a bonus at work here, too. All that rendered bacon fat seasons the surface for everything that follows.
Toast the Buns and Grill the Onions
Here’s a tip worth stealing even if you’ve decided to make grilled cheese instead: skip the butter and spread mayo on the cut side of your buns before they hit the griddle.
Mayonnaise is mostly oil and egg, which means it browns evenly, resists burning better than butter, and builds a crust on the bun that butter can’t match. You won’t taste mayo on the finished burger—just a toasted, golden face on the bun that holds up against juicy patties and condiments. Ben gets the buns toasting, and once they’ve built that crust, he moves them off to the side.
As he says, some people want fresh onion on a burger, but he prefers his grilled. And sweet Vidalia onions that’ve spent a few minutes on a bacon-seasoned griddle are a different experience: softer, sweeter, and built to melt into the patty rather than crunch on top of it.
He gets them down while the buns finish toasting. By the time the griddle is prepped for burgers, they’re right where he wants them.
Scrape Clean & Start Burger Smashing
Before any beef touches the surface, Ben scrapes the griddle as clean as he can get it. Then he goes one step further and dries up the excess oil.
Then, he portions his beef into 3-ounce balls. Ground chuck is the standard here, though he likes to blend bacon into the beef, too. He places the balls on the griddle and smashes them flat with his burger press. The technique makes the patty: press and hold for about 5 or 6 seconds to set the crust, then twist the press and slide it to the side so it releases clean instead of tearing the surface you just worked to create.
Once the whole round is smashed, he hits the patties with a coarse seasoning—salt, pepper, and garlic—then watches the meat. When the juices rise up through the patties, they’re ready to flip. Ben stresses using the edge of the spatula to scrape up the burgers during the flip, because all that browned crust formed against the griddle needs to come up with the patty.
Right after the flip, the cheese goes down, and Ben breaks from smash burger orthodoxy here, passing on American for Colby Jack. By the time the cheese melts, the burgers are done. He pulls them off and scrapes the griddle clean before the next round, so every batch sears as well as the first.
Build the Smash Burger
Once the patties are grilled, Ben gets to building the burgers. Here’s how he builds his from bottom to top: Toasted bun, ketchup, lettuce, two patties with cheese, three strips of bacon for full coverage, four pickles, mustard, top bun.
As he jokes, if you stack it right it looks like a burger straight out of a commercial. Paired with a perfectly striped lawn and the whole family at the table, it’s the perfect dinner.
Griddle Smash Burgers with Mayo-Toasted Buns
Print Ingredients
- Burgers
1½ pounds ground chuck, portioned into eight 3-ounce balls (or ground beef with bacon ground in)
Salt, pepper, and garlic seasoning
8 slices Colby Jack cheese
- The Build
4 burger buns
Mayonnaise, for toasting
12 strips bacon
1 sweet Vidalia onion, sliced
Ketchup
Mustard
Lettuce
16 pickle slices (4 per burger)
Directions
- Preheat the griddle. Lay the bacon down first—it takes the longest. Flip when it’s about halfway done, then remove and set aside.
- Spread mayonnaise on the cut sides of the buns. Toast on the griddle until a golden crust forms, then move them off.
- Griddle the sliced Vidalia onions until soft and lightly charred. Set aside.
- Scrape the griddle as clean as possible and dry up excess oil. The surface should be clean, hot, and dry before smashing.
- Place the beef balls on the griddle and smash flat with a press. Press and hold for 5–6 seconds, then twist the press and slide it off to the side.
- Season the patties with coarse salt, pepper, and garlic.
- When the juices rise through the patties, flip using the edge of your spatula to scrape up all the crust with each patty.
- Immediately add one slice of Colby Jack per patty. When the cheese melts, the burgers are done. Remove from the griddle.
- Scrape the griddle clean between rounds so each batch sears like the first. Repeat until all patties are cooked.
- Build each burger: toasted bun, ketchup, lettuce, two patties with cheese, three strips of bacon, four pickles, mustard, top bun.
Frequently Asked Questions
Grilling brings out more flavor in sweet Vidalia onions than they have raw, letting them melt into the patty instead of adding a raw crunch on top. Cooking them on a bacon-seasoned griddle also picks up extra flavor from the fat left behind by the bacon.
Ground chuck, portioned into 3-ounce balls. Chuck carries enough fat to stay juicy in a thin patty and enough beefy flavor to stand up to the hard sear.
Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil and egg, so it spreads evenly, browns uniformly, and resists burning at griddle temperatures where butter scorches. The result is a crisper, more even golden crust on the bun, and no detectable mayo flavor on the finished burger.
Press and hold for about 5 or 6 seconds to set the crust, then twist the press and slide it sideways off the patty. The twist breaks the bond between the beef and the press so it releases clean instead of tearing the patty apart.
Watch for the juices to rise up through the top of the patty—that’s your cue. Then flip with the edge of your spatula doing real work: scrape hard along the griddle so the entire browned crust releases with the patty. That crust is where the flavor lives, and a lazy flip leaves it behind.
