Animal-Style Burger For Man Night. As we have a guest tomorrow and I will be cooking steaks, tonight I had to come up with another idea for dinner.
Meet the homemade Animal-Style Burger, Double Double, inspired by In-N-Out. Besides Texas and Toronto, it would seem that In-N-Out is mostly a California tradition. It is spreading east for sure, which is good for them, as they will find out.
If you’ve never had In-N-Out, there’s nothing like it. They make the best hamburgers around, flat. If you’ve ever traveled around California and tried to go to In-N-Out at any location, it is always busy. Always.
One of the many parts about In-N-Out is that they have a secret menu, sort of. Their menu is basic, but if you know what to ask for, you can get all sorts of fun sides (hot peppers individually wrapped being one) and preparations.
One such preparation is called animal-style, which can be had on both burgers and fries.
Basically, they smear mustard on the patties before grilling them, and then they add grilled onions with extra secret sauce, pickles, and cheese. If you order fries like this, these extras are all dumped on top of them sans pickles.
Now I will be the first to admit that nothing replaces or can hold a candle to an original In-N-Out Animal Style Burger Double Double. That being said, it doesn’t mean you can’t try it at home when you have all of the ingredients on hand. There is nothing exotic about how Animal-Style Burger is made, and it’s pretty friggin’ good even if this Animal-Style Burger and In-N-Out’s aren’t the same things.
The Best Animal-Style Burger For Man Night
Ingredients
- ½ pound beef hamburger patties you will divide this into two.
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- ¼ cup grilled onions in a small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon butter and brown the onions over medium heat, about 7 to 10 minutes, stirring here and there
- 2 tablespoons 1000 Island dressing or a comparable secret sauce
- 2 slices American cheese
- 1 tablespoon meat seasoning I use Suzy-Q’s, the Santa Maria style BBQ secret
- 2 leaves iceberg lettuce
- 2 slices tomato
- 1 regular hamburger bun
Instructions
- Once you’ve got the ingredients done and ready, like the grilled onions, it’s basically cooking a couple of burgers and putting it together.
- First, though, coat the patties with the seasoning. Then, smear a good amount of mustard on one side of the patty. In a hot skillet (medium-high heat), put the patties mustard-side down. Then, smear the upside of the patties with more mustard.
- After about 5 minutes or so, flip them and cook for another 5 minutes. Put a slice of cheese on each right before they’re done and get the cheese to melt a bit, but not totally.
- For the bun, smear a good amount of 1000 Island on each side of the bun. On the bottom part of the bun, lay the leaves of lettuce, and then put the two tomatoes on that. Mix some 1000 Island with the grilled onions and put those on the top part of the bun:
- Lay the finished patties on the tomatoes, and cover with the top bun. You will get a pseudo-Animal Style Double Double.