FOOD NEWS
For The Most Flavorful Burgers, Add Mushrooms To The Meat
By Kalea Martin
Mixing different seasonings, spice mixes, or fresh herbs directly into your ground beef will most certainly take the flavor of your burger up a notch. However, if you want your burger to retain a neutral flavor, then there's only one savory ingredient you'll want to consider adding above all others: mushrooms.
According to Moku Foods, despite their apparent differences, mushrooms and meat have one essential amino acid in common, glutamate, which is responsible for a savory flavor usually referred to as umami. When you mix mushrooms and ground beef, you're essentially getting double the savoriness from two different sources of umami.
Most burgers that use mushrooms, like a classic mushroom and swiss burger, call for slicing them up, but for this combination method, you'll want to toss them in the food processor. According to Umami, finely chopped mushrooms have a texture nearly identical to ground beef, but to hold the burger's shape, you want to have a 2:1 ratio of meat to mushrooms.