Hello, Friday…so nice to see you!

MN friends.  The Juicy Lucy.  Discuss…

Non-MN friends.  The Juicy Lucy.  Thoughts?  Have you been blessed enough to experience such amazingness?  If you aren’t familiar I’ll give you the lowdown.  It’s a burger thats filled with cheese on the inside.  And a burger thats been owned and treasured by the Twin Cities for as long as I can recall.  You’ve got legendary places like this that have absolutely hit the nail on the head with showing folks how a classic Juicy Lucy is done.  And then there’s spots like this that take the concept of the Juicy Lucy and run with it.  The stuffed cheese is accompanied by things like bacon, caramelized onions, pepperoni, sauces of all sorts, peppers…the list could go on.

But my favorite?  The trustee old original Juicy.   I want nothing else in the way of my cheese…keep it simple.  A ridiculously savory ground beef burger stuffed with nothing but an obscene amount of cheese is plenty perfect.   So much, that there are warnings on most menus preparing you for that first-bite-kill…because that cheese is damn hot.  And damn gooey.  And damn over the top.  Dangerous.

Now while nothing quite beats sitting at your favorite neighborhood pub sipping on a cold one with fresh cut fries and a Juicy Lucy staring you right in the eyes, I’ve been playing around at home with these things for the last couple of years.  And I’m passing on to you my favorite way to prepare them in my kitchen.

Now, lets just talk process for a second.  You could very easily form your ground beef into a burger, create an indent for the cheese, stuff it and seal it back up.  But thats not optimizing cheese real estate, in my opinion.  Go big or go home, folks.  So the only way to do it, from my Juicy-Lucy-Loving-Rationale, is to form two hamburger patties, pile on the cheese and then sandwich them together.   Cheese Real Estate Optimized.  That way, you’re getting cheese in every bite… all along the outside and edges of the burger.  Because nobodys got time to waste getting to the middle of the burger for the goods.  I want it in my first bite.  And every bite there after.  Please and thank you.

So if you haven’t experienced such bliss and you can’t make it to one of the tried and trues of JuicyLucyVille right here in the Twin Cities, take a stab at them at home with this recipe.

Happy to share a little piece of Minneapolis with you, friends!  Enjoy your weekend!

The At-Home Juicy Lucy Burger

notes: any cheese will do here as long as its shredded…use your favorite.

Ingredients

1 Pound Ground Beef, preferably 80/20

1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard

1 Small Onion, grated on a box grater

1/2 Cup – 3/4 Cup Shredded Gouda Cheese

Kosher Salt + Black Pepper

Romaine Lettuce, for wrapping

Burger Toppings

Directions

Preheat oven to 475 and place a wire baking rack inside of a baking sheet lined with foil.  Place the ground beef, dijon, and onion in a large bowl.  Mix gently with your hands until incorporated.  Divide mixture into 4 portions.  Take one portion at a time and divide it into two equal pieces.   Form each portion into a thin burger patty (I like to do this in between two sheets of parchment paper, flattening the burger into a patty with my palm-youll have 8 patties total when finished).  Sprinkle cheese all over 4 of the patties, leaving a small amount of room around the edges.  Place remaining 4 patties on top of the cheese and then gently seal the edges, reforming the burgers if needed.  Season the burgers on both sides liberally with salt and black pepper.  Place on prepared baking rack and roast in the oven for 15 minutes or until beef is cooked through and nicely browned on the outside.  Serve on romaine lettuce leaves topped with your favorite toppings.  Serves 4.