The Argentine Burger with Chimichurri

After my Sophomore year in college, I lived for a summer with a friend in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We had a lot of fun in those 10 weeks (maybe too much fun actually). I made this Homemade Burger with Chimichurri Sauce as a reminder of how delicious chimichurri can be with grilled meats!

While I don’t remember much Spanish unfortunately, I do remember a few things about Argentina: 1) Argentinians are beautiful. It’s something in the water. 2) They enjoy late dinners. If you even hint at hunger before 9PM, you will be mocked. 3) They had the most wonderful beef I’ve ever had in my life. I dream of it. They take really good care of their animals and people respect the animals. The quality is just unbelievable.

Sometimes I try to relive some eating experiences from Argentina and this burger was one of those tries. The key to it is the spicy chimichurri blend that goes on as a topping. In Argentina, this stuff is served with almost every meal. Something about the blend of spices can make good beef taste beefier.

The Argentine Burger with Chimichurri

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4 from 7 votes

Author: Nick Evans

Servings: 6 Servings

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes minutes

Ground Chuck burger topped with Monterey Jack cheese and a spicy chimichurri sauce.

Ingredients 

Chimichurri Sauce:

• 1 Cup parsley
• ¼ Cup cilantro
• 1 Tablespoon fresh oregano
• ¼ red onion, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Teaspoon hot paprika
• 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
• ¼ Cup olive oil

Burgers:

• 2 pounds ground chuck beef
• 8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated
• Salt and Pepper
• Buns

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Instructions

• To make the chimichurri, combine all your ingredients except the beef, cheese, and buns in a blender or food processor and whiz it up.  If you don’t have a blender, you can very finely chop everything and stir it together with your vinegar and oil.
• This will become stronger the longer it sits.  It’s best in the one to two day range.  After that it gets almost too strong.
• If you’re grinding your meat yourself, cut it into chunks and pulse it a few times in the food processor, or you can get your butcher to grind it for you.
• Form 6 ounce patties from the ground beef and put a big thumb depression in the center of each patty.  Season well with salt and pepper.
• I cook mine either in a grill over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes per side or in a cast iron pan over high heat with just a drizzle of oil.  Once the pan is very hot, add the burgers and make sure they don’t touch.  Sear them on each site for about 4 minutes per side for medium rare.
• If you’re using cheese, grate the cheese and add it to each burger a minute before they’re done.  If you have a lid, cover the pan for the best melting.
• Toast the bun and serve each burger with a lot of chimichurri sauce!

Notes

Adapted from Burgers, Fries, and Shakes.

Nutrition

Serving: 1burger | Calories: 617kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Protein: 36g | Fat: 51g | Saturated Fat: 20g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 23g | Trans Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 141mg | Sodium: 335mg | Potassium: 531mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 1357IU | Vitamin C: 14mg | Calcium: 342mg | Iron: 4mg

Course: Main Dishes, Sandwiches

Cuisine: Argentine

Making the Chimichurri Sauce

I won’t lie to you. This stuff has a kick to it. I wouldn’t recommend eating it alone and then going out on a Saturday night. You’ll have a hard time socializing with people that didn’t eat it. That’s why the entire country of Argentina eats it for every meal.

I should also mention that there are a ton of varieties for chimichurri. There are red versions, green versions, hot and mild versions. This version isn’t very hot but it has a lot of flavor to it. It’s pretty acidic which goes well with the red meat.

To make it, roughly chop everything and process it up. If you don’t have a food processor, you can mince everything and stir it together with the vinegar and oil. Remember, chimichurri existed before food processors.

Try to make this at least an hour before serving it. If you make it a day or two ahead, it’ll be even more flavorful. I made mine an hour before and it was about perfectly fine though.

This recipe will most likely make more chimichurri sauce than you need for these burgers. Store the leftovers for any good grilled meat! It’ll keep in the fridge for a week or so.

The Burgers

I’m putting my foot down. You can’t call this burger The Argentine unless you use the best beef you can find. Don’t use frozen beef patties and tell your friends you are making some Argentine Burgers. If you use crappy beef, you have to call them normal burgers with Chimichurri. Also, the chimichurri will overpower the meat if it’s just some bland freezer beef.

For my burgers I used my homemade ground beef for summer burger mix. If you are lucky, you can also ask your butcher to grind up some choice selections of meat from their counter but you’ll probably have to get at least 5 pounds of meat for them to do it.

In a pinch, I used to make small batch ground beef in my food processor as well. I processed the fat for a few seconds in my food process and then threw in the rest of the meat. If you’re making a lot of burgers, you probably want to do one pound at a time.

Once it’s ground, you can form nice 6 ounce patties. Be light with the meat. Try not to pack it down too much. Also, to make sure the burgers plump up evenly (you don’t want them to look like a football when they’re done), put a deep thumb impression in the middle of each one. Season them pretty liberally with salt and pepper also.

Cooking the Chimichurri Burgers

These burgers were made for the grill so that’s how I did mine on this day, but I’ve used a cast iron pan before for burgers with great results as well.

Cooking a burger on a hot cast iron pan is really easy though and produces really good results. Heat up your cast iron pan until it’s very hot and add just a tiny bit of oil (maybe 1 teaspoon). Then arrange your burgers around the pan, making sure that they don’t touch or overlap.

Don’t touch these! You want to make sure they develop a good sear on each side. After about 3-4 minutes, give them a flip. After 3 minutes on side two, add cheese if you’re using cheese. You should use cheese.

You want to use a mild cheese that’s melts really well like monterey jack. On this day I actually used a few slices of provolone which worked great.

If you like a medium burger, total cooking time should be about 8 or 9 minutes, give or take a minute or two depending on the size of your burgers and the temperature of grill/pan.

Once they’re done, add the burger to a toasted bun and top with some chimichurri sauce.

The toasted bun is pretty important. It holds up nicely to all the juices from the burger and the sauce.

This is a simple looking burger, but it’s deceptively flavorful. Each burger is really filling. The beef flavor is really nice and intense and the acidity of the chimichurri is perfect.

If you have time, you could also whip up a batch of homemade chips!

Here are a few other great burger recipes!

• Homemade Smashed Burger
• Mushroom Burgers
• Brown Butter Burgers
• Jack Daniels Burgers from Host the Toast