If you could all take a knee and bow your heads to the floor in honour of this, the most holy of all food seasons. It is officially grilling season. Want to get a bit more adventurous with your cheeseburgers this year? My guide to picking the best cheese for your burger.
I don't care if you eat turkey burgers, veggie burgers, hamburgers or brontosaurus burgers; they all taste better with cheese. Only a fool would rather eat a plain burger over a cheeseburger.
In fact, just moments ago, I saw a guy trip on what appeared to be air outside of my office window. That is the sort of pathetic thing that would only happen to someone who doesn't like cheeseburgers.
Since it's officially grilling season, or barbecue season or whatever they call it wherever you're from, it's time to fill our neighbourhoods with the scent of smoke and charred meat.
Or if you're vegan/vegetarian the scent of smoke and charred plant based, imitation meat. And YES, most of these cheeses have vegan options.
Table of Contents
Best Cheese For Your Burger
Cheddar
The classic. Grate it, slice it or shred it. Just get it on there. Use a sharp cheddar for the full flavour effect.
Blue Cheese
And not just any blue cheese. Get your hands on some Italian blue cheese with red wine running through it like Oro Rosso. Top a burger with this luxury cheese and get instant meat cred. Other good blue cheese choices are Stilton or Gorgonzola.
Goat Cheese
This is the one cheese I still haven't tried on a burger myself but I've heard enough people rave about it that it must be good. If you like goat cheese that is. One tip: Add the room temperature cheese after the burger has been cooked. It's already soft so you just need the residual heat from the burger to warm it up.
Swiss
More of a turkey burger person? Load it with swiss. Lots and lots of swiss.
Hot Pepper Cheese
Like it hot? Top your burger with a Pepper Jack or any other cheese with hot peppers in it. I love a cheddar with some type of blindingly hot scotch bonnet in it.
Then up the heat by adding pickled jalapeno peppers to your burger. Then really mix things up with a couple of sweet pickles under everything. You're welcome.
Fontina
Fontina is hardly ever mentioned with burgers but if you want a gooey cheese with some stretch you HAVE to go with Fontina. The most melty, string stretchy cheese ever.
Plastic Cheese aka American aka Processed
Yup. Good old fashioned, individually wrapped in plastic cheese. American cheese slices. I like them and there's nothing you can say to change my mind. Besides. I know you like them too.
I'm getting ahead of myself here, what with the talk of cheese and all. The most important thing for a good burger is to have a good base; the patty. There are two schools of thought on what makes the perfect hamburger patty. Yes, only two. No more and no less.
The 1 Ingredient Beef Burger.
Beef. That's it. There's just beef in this burger. Ground beef is carefully formed into a patty shape. Maybe, MAYBE the addition of a few spices. THIS is how you should make a burger if you have unbelievably good, top quality, fatty meat from a specialty butcher. Grass fed cows produce tastier meat and the fat is yellow, not white.
Pros:
The meat shines as the one and only flavour.
Cons:
Hamburgers made out of only beef with no filler or binders means they can fall apart on the grill easily.
The Burger Recipe
A homemade hamburger with beef and a few extra things is what you do when you're working with regular ground beef from the grocery store or extra lean ground beef that needs some help with flavour. By adding egg, breadcrumbs, onions, spices and other things you can enhance the flavour of the meat.
Pros:
You can make standard ground beef taste great and because of the use of binders like egg or breadcrumbs, your hamburger will hold together as you move and flip it on the grill.
Cons:
Burger purists will taunt you for adding anything to the meat.
When I have great meat I make hamburgers with just ground beef. But the majority of the time I add a few things to help the burger along. Here's the recipe to make homemade hamburgers my way.
Perfect. Now that you have an idea of what you're going to put those gooey cheeses on we can start talking about gooey cheeses. Seriously though. Cheese. The food so alluring that even people with side effects right out of a horror movie will take a hit every once in a while for it.
By the way if you are lactose intolerant, check and see what your blood type is. I did a whole post a while ago on eating right for your blood type and certain blood types are apparently associated with lactose intolerance. I've haven't yet decided if this view is hooey or not.
And now a word about buns. Brioche.
Next time you go to make a cheeseburger open your net a little wider when choosing cheeses for it. Live on the edge. If a lactose intolerant person can scarf down a wheel of Brie once a year, you can certainly widen your circle of hamburger cheeses.
Let the grilling season begin. All rise.
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I am rather basic with my burgers for cheese, it’s one of 3 Cheddar, Mozzarella,or sliced. We don’t care for blue here in the house so it never enters the door. Swiss on occasion, marble once in awhile, Parmesan is a staple though.
I know kinda boring right 🤷♀️.
Let's just say my dog won't even eat those plastic wrapped slices of "processed cheese food". Seriously. I've tried giving her a piece on a few occasions when we had it in the house. She sniffs it, backs away and gives me this "WTF, dude?" look.
https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/kraft-singles-truths-you-never-knew
At the risk of instigating a food fight — The higher the quality of ground beef, the fewer embellishments required.
Cheese, condiments, and other toppings are only needed for less tasty hamburger patties.
:)
Nope. You're wrong.
Food fight? Yaaay!
Karen,
As a person who loves many varieties of cheese (Just NOT on a burger!)
Did I just hear a collective gasp?? 😊
I always wondered why I was so clumsy and the dumbest things happen to me, now I know why.
Thanks for the counseling.😂😂😂
Guess I can use the money for therapy on a cheese safe!👍👍
Enjoy🍔🍔🍔🍔
Or my favorite melty Monterey Jack! We had it on a smokey chorizo burger! My night was made!
Karen,
As a person who loves many varieties of cheese, (Just NOT on a burger!)
Did I just hear a gasp??😊
I always wondered why I was so clumsy and the dumbest things happen to me. Now I know why.
Thank you for the counseling.😂😂
Guess I can use the money for therapy on a cheese safe. Lol
Cheese like bacon makes everything better.
Goat cheese on lamb burger. Red onion required.
Zeke here, guerilla-posting on wife's account--must type fast! Parmesan, that's PARMIGIANA-REGGIANO, not kraft "shaky cheese." Or Piave in a pinch. Or P-R with a pinch of Piave. Thick, Warmed. Paradisio!
LOL. Well according to your wife's comment that came in 45 minutes later, her choice is goat cheese. ~ karen!
Fontina cheese is one of my secret ingredients, so glad you mentioned it!
It's an extremely underused cheese! ~ karen
I think that the type of cheese you use should match the mood your in and more importantly what type of burger your having. Try them all!!! Thankyou though for the post as I now know what is for supper tonight. This post just reminded me of a very important topping that needs to be used up in my fridge.... BACON JAM!!! Yum!!
PepperJack, PepperJack, PepperJack till it's running off the burger and messing up my BBQ. Nuff said. ;)
A friend of mine, raised on indulging only in Gouda and Adam, joined us for burgers. Following my lead, he ordered an Blue Cheeseburger. His shock was visceral - and left a mess on the table.
If I hadn't just been taste-testing chocolate chip cookies (all brown sugar, different bake times, with nuts, without nuts), all those photos would have me starving! I confess: I am staggered that you did not use this as an excuse to try a burger with goat cheese. Oh, wait. Do you not like goat cheese?
I loveeeee goat cheese. :) Next burger I'll give it a shot. ~ karen!
Burger, Mayo on bun, LOTS OF TOMATOES AND ONIONS, ketchup and mustard, get a big ccloth napkin and dig in! 😋
You forgot to add the goat cheese. Place a nice thick slice just under the onion and I’m a happy girl!
McLarens - it used to come in a crock but now comes in a red plastic container is awfully nice as well on either a hamburger or a hotdog.
OMG please please please do a grilled cheese cheeses post, too. The plastic cheese made me almost taste a grilled cheese with white bread and american cheese.
Also omg I need a cheeseburger.
https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/best-grilled-cheese-youll-ever-eat/ ~ karen!
Do you use your cheese safe a lot, and does it keep the cheese edible for long? Do the cheese flavors influence each other? We like cheese around here, but just keep ours in the fridge, then we have to anticipate a cheese craving and get it out ahead of time to warm up a bit. I await your guidance on cheese storage.
Hi madeline. I use it more during the holidays when I have a lot of different expensive cheeses. For normal everyday life when I have the regulars like goat, mozzarella, cheddar and maybe a blue - I do not. Mainly because it takes up so much room in the fridge. The cheese flavours don't mingle in it. ~ karen!
The official name of “plastic cheese” (slices, velveeta, etc) is actually American Cheese. Not even kidding a little bit!
Not all American Cheese is created equal ;)
Or as my young friend would say - because her family always had exotic cheeses - “flat” cheese!
Actually I think it technically has to be called a "cheese product" because it's not really cheese. Plastic cheese is by far more accurate.
I don't like them...ewwww!