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I was just trying to make a blue cheeseburger the other night, but we ended up with what Alexis perfectly described when she declared, "It's a wedge salad burger!".  When she's right, she's right.

The burger is a 6-ounce ground chuck smash burger that we top with blue cheese, red onion, and steak rub while still on the griddle, so it melts together.  That deliciousness rests on top of the crispy center leaves of iceberg lettuce and is topped with seasoned diced tomatoes. All of that is on a toasted brioche bun slathered with red wine vinegar and black pepper mayo. All of that is just a long way of saying it is friggin' amazing. 

Alexis dubbed this the Wedge Salad Burger because she noticed that it had all the typical steakhouse wedge salad ingredients.

A couple of tips. Use the freshest ground beef that you can get. I get mine at Food City because they grind it fresh several times a day. Also, wedge salads are crunchy so use the center core of the iceberg lettuce for the crunchiest lettuce.

I doubt that you need a recipe to recreate this delicious burger, but just in case, here it is. 

Wedge Salad Burger

By www.nibblemethis.com

Published 11/15/2021

A 6 ounce Smashburger topped with blue cheese, red onion, steak rub, diced tomato, smoked bacon, crunchy iceberg lettuce, and red wine vinegar-black pepper mayo. 

Ingredients

• 24 ounces fresh ground chuck (freshly ground is best)
• 2 teaspoons finely ground steak seasoning (see notes for ideas)
• 1 cup crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese
• 1/2 cup diced red onion
• 4 slices bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
• 1/2 cup diced tomato
• leaves from the crunchy core of iceberg lettuce
• 4 brioche hamburger buns

For the Red Wine Vinegar and Black Pepper Mayonnaise

• 1/2 cup Duke's mayo
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon finely ground steak seasoning

Instructions

1. Make the red wine vinegar and black pepper mayo. Whisk the 4 mayo ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to use.
2. Preheat the grill/griddle. I've made this recipe on a flat top griddle and a griddle plate on the grill. Either way, just give it plenty of time to preheat, so the surface temperature is 450-500f. Before using the griddle, wipe it with high-temperature cooking oil, such as peanut oil or avocado oil.
3. Griddle cook the burgers. Divide the beef into four 6-ounce balls, smash them onto the hot griddle, and cook them for 4 minutes. Season the burgers and flip them. Immediately top them with blue cheese, red onion, and more seasoning. Let them cook to your desired degree of doneness, about 2-3 minutes for medium to medium-well. I don't like doing medium-rare burgers unless I personally ground the beef.
4. Toast the buns. You can do this over a fire or on the griddle plate if you clean it off first. If you have a bagel setting for your toaster, that does a fantastic job of toasting hamburger buns.
5. Assemble the burger. Place the crunchy lettuce leaves on top of the bottom bun. Top that with the burger patty. Top that with the diced tomato and crumbled bacon. Finally, slather some mayo on the bun top and crown this burger.

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 00 hrs. 15 mins.

Cook time: 00 hrs. 15 mins.

Total time: 30 mins.

Tags: burger, grilled, cheeseburger, griddle, flattop 

First, I cooked some of my home-cured and smoked bourbon and sorghum bacon while heating up the griddle. 

I used the Thermapen IR that my sister gave me for my birthday to make sure that my griddle was hot and ready for the burgers. This dual-duty workhorse not only gives you superfast internal food temperature readings but also has a non-contact thermometer to give you an accurate surface temperature reading for things like skillets and griddles. Thermapen IR [Affiliate Link]

For smashing the burgers, I used a burger smasher with a recessed space, so it forms the burger simultaneously. The one I have is no longer available, but it has been replaced by The Pattypusher[not an affiliate link] at Craycort. It has 3 adjustable sizes, whereas the one I have is one fixed depth.

My setup was one I've used on here many times - a griddle salvaged from an old grill and I put it on an Adjustable Rig (Ceramic Grill Store) on a Big Green Egg kamado grill. I had a Kick Ash Basket full of Rockwood Lump charcoal fueling the fire.

The steak seasoning that I used is my fancy SPG rub. I put it all in a pepper mill so I can have it freshly ground whenever I want it.

Upscaled SPG seasoning

• 1 tablespoon Bourbon Barrel Smoked Salt
• 2 teaspoons green peppercorns (milder, fruitier)
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon dried minced garlic

I've cooked this on both a flat top and like this. The only difference is the cheese melts better on the grill like this than on my flattop since the flat top only heats from the bottom up.

I like blue cheese, but I LOVE the gorgonzola variety. It's a bit mellow, so I can use more cheese to get a big flavor without too much of the pungent punch of blue cheese.

Simple but fantastic, this is our favorite blue cheese burger.