Summertime means cookouts and barbecues, and nothing is easier, or tastier, than delicious hamburgers right off the grill. Of course, they don't have to be plain and boring - they can be fun, like these Cedar Planked Cheeseburgers with Red Wine BBQ Sauce.
They were really simple to whip up, although, there were a few parts and so they did take a little longer.
Before I did anything else, I pulled out two cedar planks I had in my grilling stash and got them submersed in water. They need about 2 hours to sufficiently soak through so that when placed on the grill, they smoke and not start on fire.
You may still find they want to start on fire, especially if your grill is prone to flare ups, but having them watered down is a great place to start.
These burgers eventually get placed on the planks on the indirect heat side of your grill, so they should be able to handle the heat and flame with just a few hours of soaking.
I then started slicing and frying some onions and mushrooms in a little bit of garlic oil and butter. I fried them slowly so that the onions caramelized a bit, and when they were done, I moved them to the side to top off the finished burger. I then got to work on the BBQ sauce.
The sauce was easy; I threw in ketchup, mustard, red wine, garlic, chipotles, honey, molasses...etc. Once it was all in the pot, I brought it to a boil and simmered it until it began to thicken, about 30 minutes. While the sauce simmered, I put together the patties.
The patties were just some simple salt and pepper and a coupe tablespoons of the finished BBQ sauce, so I left the mixture in a bowl until I could finish the sauce and add a little bit to the ground beef.
Once all combined, I then formed them into equal size patties and pressed a decent sized thumbprint in the middle to keep them from shrinking and it was grill time.
They did about 3 minutes a side over direct grill heat / flame and then were oved to the indirect side of the grill and placed on the cedar planks to finish cooking.
I need to back it up a bit. When I spooned out a few tablespoons of the BBQ sauce for the patties, I took the rest of it and blended it with the handheld immersion blender until smooth. This was more for appeasing my picky eater husband who doesn't like anything "crunchy" or "chunky" in his food. I then took a 1/2 cup or so out to the grill for basting and kept the rest in the kitchen for topping the burger.
When the burgers cooked and the white cheddar cheese melted, we brought the patties in and placed them on brioche buns and added the onions, mushrooms and more BBQ sauce. The burger was excellent - part typical, part special. The cedar plank created a very subtle smoke flavor to the meat and the red wine BBQ sauce had the perfect amount of flavor for the mushrooms and onions. It really was a nice burger.
So, if you are looking for an easy burger that has that little something special, look no further than the Cedar Planked Cheeseburgers with Red Wine BBQ Sauce. If you give it a try, make sure you let me know how you like it!
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