There’s nothing like a freshlygrilled burgerin the summertime.
You love how it hisses when the cool patty first hits the sizzling metal grate.
You love the rousing aroma as the smoke wafts through the air.
Photos: The brands. Design: Eat This, Not That!
Grab a napkin before that juice dribbles down your chin.
Hamburgers are the second most popular grilled food in America, ranking only behind steak, according toStatista.
It’s one of the quintessential flavors of the season.
Kirkland Grass Fed Beef Patties (upper left), Wegmans' 100% Grass Fed Angus Patties (lower right)Jeremy Mack/Eat This, Not That!
For a proper comparison, I also grabbed a pack of similarly frozen grass-fed beef patties from Whole Foods.
The mission: to find the best-tasting, most dependable, most fool-proof burger for summer.
This is your barbecue, after all, and you deserve to have a little fun, too.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
Yet it also comes at a slightly cheaper price tag than the prior brand of $8.49.
The look: These 4-ounce patties are slender, compact, and oblong.
But they cook up quick and the modest size matches up perfectly with your standard hamburger bun.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
The taste: Perfectly palatable with a nicely charred exterior.
The center is solidly brown and the meat is tightly compressed, offering a firm but relatively easy-to-chew bite.
I chose thegrass-fed beef pattiesforso many reasons.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
They come in a party-friendly, 5-pound bag, containing 15 pre-made patties, for $24.99.
“you might tell it’s frozen,” one of my fellow tasters commented last summer.
That sentiment still rings true today.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
Despite rising beef prices, these burgers have held steady since then, ringing up at $6.49.
Though these burgers are highly affordable, a thicker patty is still a safer bet.
His company now supplies packaged burger patties in various styles to supermarkets nationwide.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
The look: Big, thick, and perfectly round like a meaty hockey puck.
The LaFrieda patties each weighed around 6 ounces and measured close to a full inch thick.
The taste: Super juicy and savory, if somewhat chewier than other burgers that I tried.
Photo: Chris Shott/Eat This, Not That!
you might tell it’s a high-quality burger.
Still, I was unable to achieve the lush rosy center I desire, despite multiple grilling attempts.
That’s why I’m dropping LaFrieda one spot to #3 in this year’s updated rankings.
The two pack cost me $9.19.
The look: Massive.
They cooked up perfectly, outwardly charred with a tantalizingly moist pink center.
This year, I had much better luck with two of the brand’s other options.
A pack of four patties cost $12.99 at my local Foodtown.
The taste: Ambrosial.
The fatty patty is so soft and wet you’ll find yourself slurping as much as chewing.
It goes down easy and satisfying.
An earlier version of this article was published in May 2023.
It has been updated to reflect new information, nutrition facts, and fact-checking.
