Take Your Burger Meat To The Next Level With This One-Ingredient Glaze

Grilling season is upon us, and that means plenty of opportunities to mold some hamburgers and grace your taste buds with some beefy goodness. But as you know, the beef is only one part of the overall hamburger production –- an important part, yes, but just one part nonetheless. As much as it can pay dividends to choose the best kind of beef for juicy burgers, what you put on and in those burgers is arguably just as important in giving you a tasty meal. That's why you shouldn't ignore that little bottle of oyster sauce on the shelf.

Oyster sauce brings an amalgam of flavors. Salty, sweet, and full of umami, this sauce is a great accompaniment for meats, stews, and the like, and is even a next-level addition to spaghetti. And in the case of your hamburgers, it makes for an exceptional glaze. Simply brush the viscous sauce over both sides of your burgers and pop them on the grill. Not only will the sauce impart some delicious new flavor onto the beef, but your patties will also benefit from the caramelization that occurs once they've been exposed to the grill. With such an easy trick, oyster sauce has the potential to become the secret ingredient of your incredible burgers.

So you found out that oyster sauce is the one-ingredient glaze that your burgers actually need –- great! But what if you're reading this already part-way through making your burgers and you can't exactly run to the store to grab some oyster sauce at the moment? Don't sweat it –- although oyster sauce is a sauce that stands all on its own, there are some ingredients that can get you pretty close to what oyster sauce offers. You won't get a one-for-one swap per se, but you can definitely get the job done in a pinch.

Oyster sauce and fish sauce certainly have their differences, but if the salty and more complex notes of oyster sauce are what's valuable to you, then fish sauce can bring you plenty of that same brininess. Fish sauce is much thinner than oyster sauce, though, so it works better as an ingredient in your burgers instead of as a glaze. We also suggest adding 1 teaspoon or so of sugar to your meat mix to balance the salty, umami notes in fish sauce. 

On the other hand, you have hoisin sauce, which is also distinct from oyster sauce but in different ways. Hoisin sauce brings a sweetness and consistency similar to oyster sauce, but don't expect it to taste exactly the same; think of it as a more intense American barbecue sauce with a hint of distinctiveness from fermented soy beans. If you find yourself in need of an oyster sauce replacement for the purposes of glazing, this might be your best bet.