Meals · Sandwiches, burgers & wraps

Smash burgers

Name: Smash burgers
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/3 lb ground beef (85% lean); 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 4 slices processed cheese; 4 hamburger buns, toasted; 1/2 yellow onions, sliced paper-thin; 12 slices reduced sodium dill pickles; 3 tbsp mayonnaise; 1 tbsp ketchup; 2 tsp yellow mustard

The thin-patty burger that beat the thick one: beef pressed hard onto ripping-hot steel so the crust *is* the flavour. Diner technique, home pan, no grill required.

Time: 20 min (10 prep + 10 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 569 kcal
Protein: 37 g

Ingredients

1 1/3 lb ground beef (85% lean)600 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g
4 slices processed cheese80 g
4 hamburger buns, toasted200 g
1/2 yellow onions, sliced paper-thin80 g
12 slices reduced sodium dill pickles60 g

Sauce

3 tbsp mayonnaise40 g
1 tbsp ketchup20 g
2 tsp yellow mustard10 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Divide the beef into 8 loose balls — don't pack them. Stir the sauce together.
Get a cast-iron pan or griddle smoking hot. Drop in balls, press each flat and hard with a sturdy spatula for a full 10 seconds — thin edges, maximum contact.
Season, and leave them alone 2 minutes until the edges are lacy and brown. Scrape — don't lift — them off to keep the crust, flip, add cheese.
Thirty seconds more, then stack two patties per toasted bun with onion, pickles and sauce.

Why two thin patties instead of one thick?

Two thin patties beat one thick one because crust-to-meat ratio is the whole game. The 85% beef matters too — leaner falls apart, fattier shrinks to nothing on a flat-top.

Why this score

easy to overeat

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

27% of kcal

49% water

3 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2275 kcal goes into the pot, 1097 g of ingredients comes out as ~800 g of food → 284 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 284
Protein: (27%); 19 g
Fat: (52%); 16 g
Carbohydrates: (22%); 15 g
of which sugar: 3 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 642 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.