Add This Spicy Ingredient To Ground Beef For Juicier Burgers (Hint: It's Not Chipotle In Adobo)

Whether you're an accomplished griller or just an amateur, you've likely heard many different schools of thought when it comes to how to mix and grill the perfect hamburger. Renowned chef Bobby Flay goes with just salt and pepper. However, you can branch out and can add a little onion powder and Worcestershire sauce. You can even go with one single sauce to season your burger that has tons of flavor built into a single bottle (yes, we're talking A1). But beyond the powders and sauces and other ingredients, you might want to try adding a whole other meat to your burger for some Mexican spice that will make you rethink the common cooked ground beef. Try mixing chorizo into your next blend for a slight hit of heat and extra juiciness that doesn't require a lot of prep.

Okay, so there's Spanish chorizo, and there's Mexican chorizo. You want the Mexican stuff. Spanish chorizo is a cured meat, like a small and firm salami, full of paprika flavor, hard, and generally cut into slices to eat a piece at a time. A Mexican chorizo, on the other hand, is a raw sausage, also usually flavored with paprika, vinegar, and often spices (including a variety of chiles). Sometimes it's made in casings to cook on the grill; sometimes it's packaged in a tube, much like American-style breakfast sausage. Either way, if you want a bit of extra spice, flavor, and juiciness, Mexican chorizo is the perfect addition to your burgers.

Generally, equal parts ground beef and chorizo should get your flavor dialed in. While you'd normally want to go with about an 80/20 ratio for a perfectly juicy all-beef burger (meaning 80% lean and 20% fat), because chorizo is sometimes fattier, you may want to go with a leaner ground beef. About 10% fat should be good. That said, some chorizos have close to an 80/20 fat percentage (or even a leaner blend than that), so you should check out the packaging before selecting your ground beef. To determine the fat percentage, simply divide the total grams of fat by the serving size. For example, if the fat is 16 grams and the serving size is 70 grams, that's roughly 23% fat — pretty close to 80/20. 

Depending on where you live, there's likely a Mexican grocery store that can help you with the mixture, and you won't even have to remove the sausages from the casings — if they have a good meat department, and you ask politely, they may even blend it with the beef for you. Depending on how much spice you want (and how spicy the chorizo comes from the counter), you may want to go with a smaller proportion of chorizo to ground beef. While it's not always extremely spicy, it often has added chiles or chili powder, so it can bring a serious kick if you're not sure about the proportions. Chorizo is almost always pork-based, so just like with other burger blend alternatives, you may need to change up your cooking technique a bit. With a full beef burger, you can cook it to whatever doneness you want. With pork, you don't want any pink inside to ensure it's done.