I never add eggs to my burger mix. No filler and binders needed. Just season with salt and pepper and maybe a little fresh garlic and if I'm using really lean beef I add a little olive oil to the mix. Shape into burgers and grill.

Ann

Perfect. thanks

I've never added eggs. I mix Montreal Steak Seasoning into mine with fresh garlic.

Eggs?

Eggs are for meatloaf..LOL

The most flavorful burgers are simple seasoned and grilled, IMHO.

This weeks burgers were fresh pressed garlic, s&p.

Delish

I grind my own.

I find that if I grind it twice, that is put the first ground meat back through the grinder, that the patties form very well.

So my burgers are simply beef, S&P and garlic.

I suspect that store ground beef will already do that.

If you are having trouble with them staying together, maybe run the ground beef through a stand mixer. When you do the second grind you can actually see the meat become more sticky looking. I suspect using a mixer would do similar.

No eggs here either. I add milk to keep them moist and soft. Soy sauce and salt to equal the salt, onion powder and garlic powder. Sometimes I use my mushroom soy sauce instead of the regular. Fresh garlic doesn't get cooked enough for me so I prefer the dried.

Mom used to use eggs too, but I thought that made for a mushier burger. Thanks to the CF I learned not to over handle the meat so it remains tender. And it will definitely hold together. Although I still use the egg for meatloaf!

Sometimes I use an egg and sometimes I don't. If I'm making a burger using my homemade chile sauce I need the binder but for a straight up burger you don't need an egg.

The real secret to great eggless burgers is very good ground beef. Ask the butcher to grind some sirloin for you. Add some salt, pepper, garlic and a bit of olive oil and enjoy.

If you want a filler, you should use bread crumbs and milk. I don't know the proportions because I haven't made it in a long time. They did this on ATK and also advised that when cooking hamburgers for children that they should be well done. Adding the bread crumbs soaked in milk helped make the well-done hamburgers less tough. No need to add egg.

Lars

I don't add eggs either, I use my own home grown and ultra lean ground beef, and I add a bit of olive oil or butter so it isn't too dry and crumbly for burgers. Salt and pepper, a bit of garlic if it suits me, and it's a burger.

Annie

For adults, I add red wine and paprika too. I'm always amazed by the amount of wine the meat will soak up!

I don't add eggs either. Just a bit of seasoning, whatever strikes my fancy that day.

I actually wasn't going to comment since so many already have and it seems to have been resolved but I had to say...

RED WINE!!! It never occurred to me to add wine to my burgers. I'm definitely going to try that next time!! Sounds great!

I have never ever used egg in my burgers nor have I even considered it. I didn't know you were supposed to?

I'll be another of the "eggs?????" voices.

And another "oooh red wine! Next time!" one.

Really, no eggs for anyone? Don't know why started adding eggs, I just did. I also add oats. Another can't remember why I started that.

I never use eggs... Salt, pepper for seasoning, and I will add a panade (milk and bread) to keep them moist.

-Gorilla

cookie, Grandma used to add oatmeal or bread crumbs to "stretch" the meat when there was a bunch of us to feed. I could see adding eggs as a binder for that dry ingredient.

I have never added anything to "stretch" ground beef because I only had two daughters and a freezer full of "cow", but I could see it happening in bigger families easily, so maybe that's why you do it, you learned it from someone who did that in a "frugal" time of their life?

I'm not saying it wouldn't make for a perfectly fine burger, only that it isn't necessary, burgers without egg will be just fine too.

Have fun at the party and happy birthday to your son. So what's for dessert? With no eggs, I'm assuming cake is out?

Annie

Annie

We grind our own hamburger meat also. We don't use eggs or fillers in them. Only seasonings- onion, garlic, S&P. They hold together very well without eggs to bind them. You'll never miss them. NancyLouise

I have heard of a fried egg ON a hamburger (sound gross) but never an egg IN a hamburger. Sounds more like a meat-loaf burger.

Oh yeah, I've had a fried egg on a burger. Also on enchiladas. I LOVE it! But then again I love a fried egg any ol' time!

Cookie,I know lots of people who add an egg so it's not that unheard of. I add an egg occasionally but it's only when I make my special chile burgers. I add homemade chile sauce and it's so moist I need breadcrumbs and then a binder.

It's a fabulous burger but a specialty burger.

I've heard and seen of people putting fried eggs on a hamburger but I've never done it. I also don't put egg into my hamburger. I'm just simple - good meat, maybe a little Worsh. sauce, salt and pepper - made into a pattie and on the grill it goes.

I think Ina made a hamburger with egg in the middle or maybe it was blue cheese in the middle, I can't remember.

Eggs and oats would be more meatloaf to me which I love meatloaf so nothing wrong with that (although I use bread crumbs and not oats). :)

Maybe you saw the recipes for salmon croquettes that used crackers and an egg as binder, and figured it for hamburgers too.

Mine are just worcestershire added, no salt/pepper even, but the red wine sounds like it might be a winner.

This is giving me a craving for a homemade hamburger with swiss cheese and crispy bacon on a toasted bun.... yum!

It's coming back to me. I think I started adding oats to add some fiber to the burgers and to use less meat. I have a tendency to have guilt when it comes to meat so I prefer to stretch in that sense. Dessert will be sundaes. I will make a batch of brownies to top the sundaes off with so there is some cake.
I wonder if this new way of making burgers will convert me? I found mini burger buns (yay) so minis it will be.

I used to add lots of ''stuff'' to my hamburgers. Finely chopped onion and garlic, egg, milk, bread crumbs, etc. Cooked long and low, they were plump and firm as a Hollywood bosom, smoothly textured, and almost seemed as if an unnaturally tender piece of cow had been slit open and inflated with a meat filling. Ewww. I didn't like my hamburgers very much, but didn't know what to do.

Then I became more carnivorous, I suppose, more fixated on the meat and less on the non-meat, dropped all the ''stuff'' and now I like my burgers better. As follows:

- Buy fairly cheap cuts of beef with plenty of fat and connective tissue - stewing beef, chuck, etc. I don't like the texture of store-ground meat, and I always wonder how long its been sitting there, in an open case, above 40F. Scary.
- Grind it at home, using an old crank-type meat grinder ($10 at a curio/junk shop). Cut into chunks and one pass through the grinder. I like the resulting texture, not dense, smooth or pasty, sort of irregular and chunky and loose. A food processor works as long as you don't over-process the meat.
- Mix ground meat with some olive oil and salt.
- Form into patties, not too thick (1/2'') , with as little squeezing as possible. They should be as loose as they can be and not fall apart during cooking. I think mine are usually about 1/4 lb.
- Put a skillet on high heat, get it really hot, add oil, get the oil smoking, place burger in pan and sear the heck out of it for 2 minutes. Don't touch the meat during that time.
- After 2 minutes, check if the pan-side is browned. When it is, turn heat to medium, flip the burger, and cook until done. Don't touch it, except to check for doneness. I like my burgers pretty rare (soft to the touch), which I'm willing to do because I ground the meat just minutes ago.
- Melt a dab of butter on the burger before serving.
- The goal (for me) is a burger that falls apart to each bite. You know how a fast-food burger is like dense cardboard and you have to worry at it, like a dog, to tear each bite free? I want exactly the opposite here.

I have better luck using a skillet than a grill. When I'm grilling, I have to pack my burgers more tightly, so that they don't fall apart, and I don't like the end result as much. Probably because I'm not much of a griller, sort of a B- type.

My hubby adds, garlic, jalapeno pepper, and a little BBQ sauce. They a great but sometimes a little dry. I've never thought of using olive oil.

I remember my grandmother added oatmeal and eggs to stretch the burger. I've never done that because I too only had two children and plenty of beef in the freezer.

Instead of adding oil, if you're burgers are dry, try my trick (which makes my burgers famous among all my friends)... Add a little melted bacon fat! I keep a can of bacon fat in the freezer, and for maybe a pound and a half of burger meat, I add maybe 1-2 Tbs of melted bacon fat (can be melted right in the microwave)... Its not that you can identify the bacon flavor in the burger -- it just amps up the beefy flavor, keeps it moist, and gives it that little something extra...

I normally use eggs or egg beaters plus bread crumbs or oatmeal. In light of the above however I may try just meat and of course finely chopped onions and seasonings. Sounds good. I always throw in some Worcestershire.

Kate

I saw Steven Raichlen do an episide of his grilling show on burgers and he used grated cheese in his burgers. He said that the trend of using lean cuts of meat plus cooking so no red shows due to health concerns can make for a tough burger, which is why I imagine one might add some kind of fatty filler. With an egg, it is really the yolk that is the key ingredient, with all the fat from the egg.

Being vegetarian this is not much of an issue for me, but I do find Steven Raichlen's show very fun and interesting. Can't say I've tried many of his recipes, but I think he did even put out a vegetarian cookbook!

My personal view - I don't see why a burger needs to be cooked any more ''done'' than any other cut of meat. If you like your beef crusty and seared on the outside with the inside ''rare and red'', as I do, there's no reason not to cook your burger the same way.

Other than the distrust (my distrust, anyway) of supermarket ground beef, of course. Which you take care of by grinding your own beef at home from your preferred cut. That avoids the need to stuff one's burgers with egg, cheese, lard, and other added liquids/fats.

Ground beef and a steak are two different things as far as the necessity to cook them thoroughly. Let's see if I can expain it properly. The outside of a steak is the only thing that's been exposed to germs to cooking that outside on a steak is the only thing necessary to kill germs. BUT on ground beef, that exterior of the cut of meat is ground all around in every part of the patty of ground meat so it is EXTREMELY necessary that you COOK THAT BEEF hot enough to kill those germs that were once on the exterior of the steaks that were ground up!!!!!! You must not eat a rare ground beef patty! VERY DANGEROUS!!!!!!

Guess we are not going to interest you in a bit of steak tartare, eh?

Seriuous, if yu are that paranoid, just grind your own meat. Food processor, small batches, don't over-work it.

Rare for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Steak tartare

Well how many people REALLY are grinding their own beef for hamburgers? There's no way in HECK I'd ever consider eating a ground beef patty from any market any other way besides well done! You have no way of knowing what conditions their facility are in! It's not being paranoid, it's using common sense!

arkansas_girl, I am also distrustful of supermarket ground beef that has been sitting in the display case for who knows how long, and was ground from who knows what pieces, and contain who knows how much fat and gristle. Plus, it looks like packaged worms. Eww. I seldom buy it, for any purpose.

As sushipup said, grinding your own beef is easy. Buy your choice of chuck, sirloin, whatever. Cut it into 1 inch chunks. Drop a few of those into the food processor, pulse several times, just enough to get the consistency you want. (Don't process it into paste.) Or use a hand-cranked grinder, takes a few minutes, my son loves to turn the handle.

Since that home-ground beef was safely sealed up inside a solid cut until just minutes ago, you can cook it rare just as safely as you could have cooked the original cut. If you want to be super-cautious, you could sear the outside of the cut before cutting it up.

Heck, you can eat it raw (steak tartare aka boeuf hachee). Raw meat is not scary. Carpaccio, anyone?

I eat my burgers and steaks rare and often eat my beef raw.

HOWEVER, and that's a big, fat, capitalized however, I grow my own beef. I have it packaged by a local small town processor that I've known my whole life, he's packaging meat for the 4th generation of my family now, since my Grandkids are eating meat that Carl packages for me.

So, the beef I eat has been born on my place, has eaten only what I've fed it (pasture and hay grown on my own acreage), was slaughtered and packaged by someone I know and trust and whose packaging facilities I've been in countless times.

I don't even hesitate to take a chunk of that raw ground meat and stick it in my mouth.

Steak tartare? Carpaccio? Oh yeah, without question.

If I did not have access (via much sweat equity, I must add) to my own beef, I'm afraid I'd also have to buy a chunk of chuck and grind it myself. My local small town independent grocer will gladly and without question grind or custom cut anything I ask for but I'd still rather grind my own, I think.

Annie

... and I will add a panade (milk and bread) to keep them moist.

Just last night I saw this for the first time in an issue of Cook's Illustrated's publication "Summer Entertaining" that I picked up at the grocery store. One of the articles describes how to make a well-done burger (I think the title is "A Well-Done Burger Done Well" --- very clever wording). The article mentions the use of panade to get a moist well-done burger. We're going to try that this weekend since my mom likes her burgers well-charred!

Well I have my information coming from an Ag. teacher. He explained why you should never eat a ground beef patty cooked any other way besides thoroughly. I suppose that if you grow your own cows and staughter your own cows and processed it yourself you can feel certain your meat is OK to eat raw. IN the case of a rare steak however, the outside of the steak where the germs would touch is cooked thoroughly and the center where it's still raw has never been exposed to any germs.

Some of us might just prefer to live on the wild side, I guess. ;-)

I get my ground beef from a local store that grinds their own. And I like it rare.

I am from the UK and spent quite a bit of time in France. Over there they look at you like an alien if you ask for a burger well done, they are always pink in the middle. I buy supermarket minced beef here in the UK and cook homemade burgers pink in the middle. I'm not sure whether the regulations on packing and storing are better here but no-one I have fed has ever been ill.

I'm glad I found this thread as I wanted to make burgers tonight but have run out of eggs. Turns out it's not a problem!! Thanks

Welcome, Jennie!

I'm English but live in France.

Yes, love a rare burger and have never been ill either!

I remember the 'big new thing' in the late 70's...the exotic burger. It was also a way to stretch the cost of beef. And add flavorings and veggies and breadcrumbs. More like a meat loaf/meatball. It needed the egg to hold it all together. Must have been in all the magazines. My dad was trying all sorts of things. It was fun for us kids. I even put a cheese ravioli inside and made them for one of my birthday parties. (the tinned ravioli i used to call pillows).

Now we only grind our own. Our butcher will grind at the counter to order. But we still prefer to grind our own. Little salt lots of pepper, high heat, med rare on the rare side.

Medium rare beef is about 129F. Eggs will not be pasteurized at that temperature.

dcarch

Eggs??? Just ground beef here + a little water for moisture + a pat of real butter in the middle for flavor.

Medium rare beef is about 129F. Eggs will not be pasteurized at that temperature.

Nor will the beef. I'm guessing the eggs are safer, but I could be wrong.

I don't like making meatloaf burgers. For me it's meat, seasonings and occasionally some steak sauce or BBQ sauce mixed in, normally just meat (sometimes a mix of beef and pork or sausage) and seasonings, fried in bacon fat and butter preferably. Fry the bacon, keep some of the grease, add a pat of butter and crank up the heat and cook those burgers. I like a thick burger medium-well and often I'll do thin burgers and double them. They're never dry or overcooked when I do them.

No sense arguing about the bacteria on meat when ground. There's bacteria in the air so you should never breathe if you're that concerned. But if you follow safe precautions (clean tools, etc, which not everyone uses!) and grind quality beef there's absolutely nothing wrong with rare burgers. They've been cooked that way for a century. Why there's the concern now is the laziness of people. They use store-bought tubes of mass merchandised (sometimes mystery meat) and that's where you run into trouble. Seems like about once a year one of the big processors has a contamination issue and recalls tons of tubes. And I grew up in a farm family and own a farm myself and would be more than happy to discuss this with any paranoid ag teacher.

Personally I prefer a burger on a flattop or frypan rather than a grill. The grill marks do nothing for me, I like the look of a nice crust on there that gives it taste.

I know this is an old thread, but while I personally am of the meat-only school, a friend makes what he calls "Belden burgers" based on the way Trixie Belden's mom made them in the books, which involves bread and milk, but no eggs.

I LOVED Trixie Belden! Right up there with Nancy Drew.

Burgers here are ground chuck 80/20 and I season them with McCormick's Spicy Montreal Steak seasoning. Mine gets cooked as close to rare as I dare.