If you are looking for a burger with a lot of flavor, using ingredients with a lot of kick, but aren’t looking for excessive spice, this could be the burger for you.  This burger can actually have a lot of spice, depending on how you decide to use your jalapeños.  I was having teens as well as adults for dinner last night and wanted to go easy on the spice, but did not want to go easy on the flavor.

I diced up several jalapeños and removed the seeds and membranes.  Pepper Jack was my cheese of choice and I cut a block up into small cubes to add to my meat as well.  Along with the jalapeños and cheese, I also added a few cloves of garlic that I minced and a couple of shallots, diced.  All the meat needed for seasoning was olive oil, kosher salt and pepper. These burgers were full of flavor.

Ingredients

• 4 pounds of 80% lean beef

• 5 jalapeños

• 1 block of pepper jack cheese (about 1/3 pound)

• 3 garlic cloves

• 2 shallots

• 1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt

• 3/4 tablespoon pepper

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• hamburger buns

• 2 pasilla peppers

Directions

Cut your jalapeños in half and remove the seeds and membrane (leave all or some of them in if you want a spicy burger).  Dice the jalapeños.  Cut the cheese into very small cubes. Peel and mince three cloves of garlic and do the same with the two shallots.

Put the ground beef in a large bowl.  Add the olive oil, kosher salt and pepper to the meat. Incorporate the ingredients that you’ve diced or minced to the meat mixture.  Mix gently with a fork, making sure all ingredients are mixed thoroughly into the ground beef.  Form your patties.  4 pounds of meat will make 12 burgers.  You can obviously adjust this downward.  I needed that many burgers, you may only need 6, so adjust accordingly.

Preheat your grill. After the grill has been heated, turn it down to medium.

Once your grill is ready, cook the burgers for 6 minutes per side for a medium-well done burger.  You can adjust your cooking time downward if you like your burger a little more red in the middle.

Earlier in the day, I sliced and charred two pasilla peppers.  I tasted this pepper befoer I charred it, and let me tell you, it was spicy!  I removed the membrane and seeds from this pepper as well.  Once I charred the pepper, it took away a lot of the heat.  I used these peppers as a topping for my burgers, along with lettuce, tomato and avocado.

Until next time, Kris