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Short-Order Kitchen

Cheeseburger Salad

By Wes Ellis2 min read
A salad bowl of sliced beef over greens with cherry tomatoes, red onion, cucumber and avocado.
Recipe card
Servings
1
Prep
10 minutes
Cook
5 to 8 minutes
Method
Skillet
Heat
Medium-high heat
Difficulty
Easy
Jump to ingredients & directions ↓

Part 2 of the thread Bowls, salads and wraps

THE SHORT VERSION4 points
  • One 4 oz patty of 96/4 lean beef, cooked to 160°F.
  • Cheese goes on for the last minute of cooking.
  • Mustard and ketchup are the dressing. Mix them if you like.
  • Everything the bun did, the pickles and onion still do.
THE RECIPE · CHEESEBURGER SALAD

Ingredients

Burger

Salad

You'll need

  • Skillet or grill
  • Spatula
  • Large bowl or plate

Directions

The patty

  1. Shape the beef into a patty 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Season both sides with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
  2. Cook it in a lightly greased skillet or on the grill until it reaches 160°F inside.
  3. Lay the cheese on top for the last minute so it melts.

The salad

  1. Pile the greens in a bowl and top with the tomatoes, onion and pickles.
  2. Set the cheeseburger on top, whole or sliced.
  3. Drizzle with mustard and ketchup (or stir them together first) and eat it while the patty's hot.
Notes Best eaten fresh. Leftover patties keep a couple of days in the fridge; reheat the patty and build the salad fresh. Oven fries on the side are a good call. Roughly 357 calories and 30 g protein per salad, give or take.

wesellis.com/blog/cheeseburger-salad/

Somewhere around the second bite of a burger, you realize the bun isn't really what you came for. This salad keeps everything else: the seared patty, the melted slice, pickles, raw onion, the mustard-ketchup tang. It just trades the bun for a big bowl of greens.

Cook it like a burger, not like salad meat

Crumbled beef on a salad tastes like taco night. A whole patty with a crust tastes like a cheeseburger. So form a real patty, season the outside, and let it sit undisturbed in a hot pan long enough to brown before you flip it. Lean 96/4 beef doesn't have much fat to fall back on, so don't press it with the spatula or you'll squeeze out what little juice it has.

Tip

Put the cheese on with a minute to go and cover the pan for a few seconds. The steam melts a thin slice all the way to the edges.

The dressing is already in your fridge

No bottle required. Mustard and ketchup straight over the top is the classic move, and whisking them together with a splash of pickle juice gets you close to a burger sauce. Slice the pickles thin so a few land in every forkful.

If you want the full burger night instead, the Air Fryer Burger and Fries keeps the bun, and the In-N-Out-style Flying Dutchman goes the other direction entirely and skips it. Those Cheeseburger Quesadillas are the version that fits in your hand.

LINKED FROM5 notes

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