Add A Pinch Of Brown Sugar For Juicier, More Flavorful Burgers

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Hamburgers are a quintessential American food and many chefs and home cooks certainly have an opinion on creative ways to make the best version of one. These days there are dozens of homemade burger recipes, from copycat fast food iterations to the decadent peanut-butter-topped creations. And we're here to give you yet another idea for your next burger night. When you're mixing the ground beef or smashing it on the stove, try adding a little brown sugar to dramatically upgrade it.

Why? Because brown sugar works as a natural tenderizer for beef that breaks down some of the chewier parts of your burger to bring out its beautiful fat flavor. It also helps accentuate any other spices you may use in your ground beef mix, similarly to how it works with a vinegar-centric salad dressing or a beef brisket rub. It both highlights the flavors and helps soften the edges, so you're not just getting a punch of acid or spice in your mouth. Plus, as the burger cooks, the brown sugar will caramelize, adding more depth that no other spice can bring out. It essentially wraps the ground beef's umami flavor with a caramelized hug but still contrasts and intensifies it, giving more texture and more toothsome goodness to every bite.

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If you're making smash burgers, you can literally just roll the rounded patties in a slight coating of brown sugar before smashing them to cook. The sugar will caramelize immediately in the pan or on the flattop. And because they're thin and cook fast, you don't need to worry about the sugar burning if they're not too heavily coated — think "caramelization," not "caramel coated." When you're prepping burgers for the grill, you can go with a simple brown sugar rub to help add a crust to the exterior, or incorporate the sugar into the meat mix. But you still don't want to go too heavy on the sugar.

If you make a simple burger mix with just chopped onion, you probably only need to measure a pinch or two of brown sugar, per burger. If you're going with more spices, you may want to aim for around five or so tablespoons per pound of ground beef. The brown sugar technique goes great with Cajun spices, cayenne pepper, or to balance out the vinegar in Worcestershire sauce.

When you're buying brown sugar, there can be a bit of confusion between light and dark. Brown sugar is simply refined sugar with molasses added. So, the darker it is, the more molasses it contains. Domino Dark Brown Sugar is perfect for burgers, especially when mixed into the meat, because it will hold more moisture. Many rub recipes go with dark brown sugar as well, but you just need to make sure the mix is balanced with fully dry ingredients, or you could end up with a full-on syrup situation. A little bit of sugar is good, too much and you may as well be making caramel apples.