Chorizo Burger Recipe - How to Make Chorizo Burgers | Hank Shaw (2024)

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If you like Mexican food, or really American Southwestern food, this chorizo burger is for you.

A mash-up of border cuisines, the burger itself is the star, loaded with flavor and super easy to make at home — but there are a few tricks you need to know first.

I experimented with a wide variety of different ways to make a chorizo burger, ranging from 100 percent chorizo to different types of chorizo to smaller proportions of the spicy sausage.

For starters, you cannot use Spanish chorizo for this recipe; it’s a dry cured salami, basically, and won’t work. You need fresh chorizo for a chorizo burger. Mexican chorizo is what most people will work with, but freshly made chorizo Argentino is excellent, too. Even green chorizo works, and is a fun change of pace.

Let’s assume for a moment that you are not using your own, homemade chorizo. It will be better if you do, but I know that’s asking a lot for a simple chorizo burger.

OK. Store-bought Mexican chorizo. If you are using the stuff in the tube, which is the most widely available form of Mexican chorizo, know that it is very wet and will not form patties all by itself. And even chorizo you buy freshly made from a carniceria will be too loose to go 100 percent chorizo.

After experimenting, I find that about 1/4 to 1/3 supermarket chorizo to ground beef or venison is about right. You can go as high as 1/2 chorizo if you use the freshly made stuff from the MexiMart, because it will hold its shape better.

Also, since chorizo is both finely ground and fatty, I prefer to use fairly lean and also finely ground beef, bison or venison. This is a great use for that venison burger with no added fat you might have in your freezer. If you are buying ground beef to go with this, go with the 10 percent fat variety if you can find it. Don’t go too much higher or your chorizo burger will be a fat bomb.

Making a chorizo burger is as easy as mixing the two meats and making patties. You can make them as regular homemade burgers, which is what I do when grilling, or as smashburgers if you are cooking inside. If you happen to have a comal, use that because it’s easier to slide the patty off the iron with no sides that it is when using a frying pan. But both work.

To make a proper smashburger, you need another heavy pan or a bacon press to squash the patty. Just have one or the other handy.

Now, on to toppings. They are, of course, up to you. But I really like the combination you see in the pictures. Lettuce, or in my case sorrel leaves from the garden, slabs of roasted green Hatch chiles, pepper jack cheese, and a special mayo. Chopped, caramelized onions are a really good addition, too.

You make the mayo by putting fresh cilantro, mayonnaise and some more roasted green chiles in a blender. Puree and add salt to taste.

So yeah, this is a pretty decadent chorizo burger. But it’s totally worth it.