How Gordon Ramsay Keeps His Thicker Burgers From Crumbling

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You can create the most brilliant ground beef blend in recorded history and form your burger patties for maximum tenderness, and still face a common pitfall with your burgers: cracking, crumbling, and otherwise falling apart on the grill. Celebrity chef (and occasional insult poet) Gordon Ramsay's preparation method takes a little longer than the average burger recipe, but it prevents losing broken beef bits to the darkest recesses of your firebox.

In a segment for ABC's "Good Morning America," Ramsay explained that he adds a bit of egg to a combination of chuck, ground beef, and brisket before he forms his burger patties, allowing them to sit and coalesce in the refrigerator overnight. The egg binds the proteins together, and the cold temperatures help stabilize the mix. You still don't want to rush the burgers from frigid environments right to the fire, Ramsay insists, but rather let the extra ingredient and the technique do their thing. From there, you can move the meat to rest at room temperature before cooking for an even finish. Regardless of doneness preference, almost no one wants a burger that's charred on the outside and raw on the inside.

Temperature is so important for excellent burgers that it should be treated like a premium ingredient. The best grill temperature for burgers hovers around 375 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. That consistency will help the internal temperature of the burgers reach the rare to well done finish you're aiming for. Many grills lack thermometers, so you can either fire it up and hope for the best, or actually achieve that sweet spot with a food thermometer like ThermoWorks ThermoPop 2 on Amazon.

A rare burger should clock in at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, though the FDA recommends cooking beef to a minimum of 155 degrees Fahrenheit. This is closer to the crowd-pleasing medium doneness, which is how Bobby Flay prefers to cook his burgers. The ironically monikered "well done" burger cooks to 160 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, spending a longer time on the grill than the medium level. 

If you're caught without your food thermometer (which is truly an inexpensive game changer for home cooks), you can also try the old 5-6-7 rule for cooking hamburgers. This back-of-the-envelope method should net rare burgers after five minutes of cooking on each side. Once your burgers are off the flame and ready for toppings, Gordon Ramsay has a simple tip for how to cheese those burgers so that you don't look like an idiot sandwich.