Buzz
Hey everyone, welcome back to another cheesy, slightly greasy episode of Will It Sous Vide? – the weekly column where I tackle any dish you throw at me using my trusty immersion circulator.
The Juicy Lucy won the vote in this week’s selection session, and I was excited to see if a quick dip in the sous-vide bath could create a juicy, cheese-filled burger without an eruption of molten cheese. I’d been eager to sous vide a burger for a while, but didn’t want to bother with a simple one – after all, both The Food Lab and Chef Steps had already covered it extensively. So along with a classic American cheese version, I was also intrigued to test if we could use the leftover sodium citrate from last week to create a cheddar-stuffed burger that wouldn't end up greasy and lumpy.
My fridge was stocked with seven kinds of cheese, but of course, none of them were American. So, off to the store I went for some processed cheese food and two pounds of ground beef (20% fat content, because fat equals flavor).
I shaped the beef into four six-ounce patties and stuffed each with 20 grams of cheese. (That’s the weight of a Kraft Single, which is the recommended amount for a Juicy Lucy according to this recipe.) For the cheddar-filled versions, I shredded the cheese finely and mixed it with 1/4 teaspoon of sodium citrate, hoping the cheese’s moisture, along with the surrounding meat, would dissolve the salt and create the perfect melt.
I then sealed up the burgers (one of each type) and cooked them at two different temperatures: 125℉ and 133℉ (the temperatures recommended by The Food Lab for medium-rare and medium burgers, respectively).
One of the benefits of cooking the burgers this way is that the bag holds everything together while cooking, so the cheese is virtually guaranteed not to leak out. After about 45 minutes, I removed the burgers from their bags, patted them as dry as I could with paper towels, and gave them a quick sear in a bacon-greased cast iron skillet.
As shown in the photo above, the vacuum-sealed bag does affect the burger’s appearance somewhat. The edges are oddly tapered, and because there’s liquid cheese inside, I couldn’t press down too hard to crisp them up. This led to some slightly awkward maneuvering with the spatula to ensure the sides touched the hot pan, which wasn’t a major issue—just a little time-consuming.
Next, it was time to cut into the burgers. I started with the 125-degree, American cheese-filled patty, slicing it open on a cutting board to reveal the cheesy goodness inside.
As expected from a burger cooked at this temperature, the meat was beautifully pink, juicy, and downright delicious. (The ‘delicious’ part is, of course, subjective and depends on whether your taste buds share my current obsession with tartare, tataki, and similar dishes.) The cheese was fully melted, but not too hot, making this Juicy Lucy a true delight to eat.
I then turned my attention to the cheddar-filled, medium-rare burger, and was greeted with this slightly disappointing sight:
As you can plainly see, the sodium citrate didn’t totally keep the cheddar congealing into a greasy lump. This wasn’t a complete surprise, since there was no way to mix the melted cheese with the sodium citrate once it was inside the burger, but at least we know for sure now. (I do think this problem could be solved by making the cheddar into a sauce—using either sous vide or the stove top method—and then freezing it into a disk and placing that inside the burger, but I didn’t have time to explore that option. Let me know if that’s an experiment you guys are interested in.) That being said, the cheddar didn’t taste bad by any means, it just wasn’t as gooey and homogeneous as its American friend. I ate it, and I was not mad about it.
I then repeated this process with the 133-degree patties, only this time I put them on buns so I could feel a little more like a human, rather than a rabid animal shoveling pink, cheese-filled meat into my mouth with no thought of decorum or decency.
The medium cheddar burger was pretty much like the previous cheddar burger, just less pink. The cheese was the same though: slightly congealed, but not bad tasting, and not too hot too eat.
The American-filled burger was delightful and, while the cheese flowed freely, the melted gooeyness within did not harm my mouth in any way. 10/10 would put it in my mouth again.
Time for our favorite question once again: Will the Juicy Lucy sous vide?
The answer? Absolutely, especially when you use American cheese. The medium-cooked, American cheese-filled burger turned out to be my perfect burger, with gooey yet not overflowing cheese and juicy, perfectly-cooked beef. I was also pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to create this cheesy burger masterpiece. I’d tried making Juicy Lucys on the grill years ago, and had a tough time keeping them intact. However, vacuum-sealing the patties kept the meat in perfect form until fully cooked, allowing me to give them a quick sear without any cheese leaking out. Sure, it took a bit more time, but it’s hands-off time, which I used to chop onions, slice pickles, and down three Diet Cokes.
