Tasty Tuesday- Bacon Cheddar Stuffed Burgers

Ok, so technically this recipe would have been better to post last week. Eh, it's never too late (or in my opinion, too cold!) to barbecue. And for those of us in the north, barbecue means cooking something on the grill. For Labor Day, we had a feast all weekend long. On Saturday we hung at a friend's house and ate their food, but the rest of the weekend, it was us cooking. Sunday featured Mister Man's most favoritest yummy marinated steak ever - and I'll admit to being sort of biased, but I still agree. It was great with my roasted fingerling potatoes and Mister Man's choice of butterscotch brownies (recipe to come!).

And yesterday? Yesterday was Midwestern heaven with bacon cheddar stuffed burgers and beer boiled bratwurst. And of course we had a couple brownies left over, so we had to eat those, too. Plus my friend made the most delicious banana cream pie that wellll let's just say that banana cream pie is not generally my thing, but this was awesome. And I will figure out how to recreate it, if only to be able to share it with you.

But now, let's just focus on those bacon cheddar stuffed burgers. This was also a Mister Man idea from awhile ago, and it's one of those things that's so super easy, but looks and tastes awesome. We've made it a few times for friends and gotten just rave reviews.

Bacon Cheddar Stuffed Burgers

Ingredients:
1 lb hamburger meat (I like the 85% lean or it gets too dry)
1/2 c shredded cheddar (or get creative and use goat cheese or gruyere or something fun)
4 slices bacon, chopped into matchsticks (and yes, I use turkey bacon)
1-2 T buttermilk dressing mix (or ranch, but I prefer buttermilk - I get mine at a bulk foods store but there are packets of ranch in your local grocer)

Directions:
After you've cut up your uncooked bacon into matchstick size pieces, place into a cold pan and turn the heat to medium high. Cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until it's crispy. Essentially, cut the bacon cross-wise into pieces 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide.

Shred your cheddar - or you can use the preshredded stuff, but I don't like the taste of the chalky stuff they add to keep it from sticking in the bag, so I just use my food processor with the shredding blade to shred my own cheese.

Make eight thin patties from your meat, with four of them being slightly larger in diameter than the other four. Place a small clump of bacon and then cheddar in the middle of the four smaller patties.

Place the larger patty atop the smaller patty. Pick the new patty carefully and crimp around the edges to get them to seal. You don't want any bacon or cheddar hanging out or it will burn. I then go around the side of each burger to push the crimped edges in and reform it gently into a "perfect" (in my world) burger shape.

After that, simply heat up your grill as you normally do, then plop your burgers on and cook them just the same as you do every other burger. I cook on a preheated grill with the two outside burners (yep, gas) on medium and the inside burner turned off. I grill it for six or so minutes on one side then flip to the other side for another four or five minutes, and it's done. Yum.

Who knew it was so easy to impress your friends?

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.