50 Home Cooks Try to Make The Perfect Burger

the number one most common food that anyone in the world can make is a hamburger so simple meat cheese bun it's not really that hard or is it we're on fire baby oh my god I'm so scared right now what if you took 50 random people and put them in the same challenge to make their idea of the perfect burger in just 10 minutes each person gets their own ingredients no rules no restrictions no professionals or chefs allowed every single burger I'm going to take a bite of and they will get a score but only the top three contestants will move on to the final round to battle it out for the grand prize of $5,000 only one burger will take that crown let's see what happens here's how this works you have 10 minutes on the clock to make ideally what you would think is the most perfect burger we're not judging off what I like we're judging off of what's the most tasty delicious well executed burger that we have you're against 49 other people do you think that you could at least get this in the top three oh yeah i mean I'm going to go for gold i got it man i got it uh fingers crossed i think so yeah I can do it sure why not i'm pretty sure I can yeah I think so we'll see what happens hell yeah i got heart i'm banking 49 other people don't i have no clue but not everyone was so confident i haven't really thought about it too much cuz like I've been dealing with school and other stuff can't promise that I'm going to be top three burger but it's going to be memorable or at least like horrifying i've actually never really made a burger before oh I don't think I've ever made a burger before honestly I've never made a burger before by myself so by yourself well actually just ever i haven't made a burger countdown starts now it'll be on go so three two one go all right we're going to go oh my god this is like so many pants for me okay what do I want to do first don't panic don't panic i don't want to panic let me go ahead and measure out my meat going straight for the meat i like that starting off strong but some had a different approach that looked like a big mouthful of Goju John that's phenomenal the sink's functional sink is functional that's it that's all you need to know now some people were devising a game plan let's see 10 minutes i'll spend a minute just uh brainstorming we're going with a Cajun persuasion burger rodeo burger you look like you've got a pretty good game plan and others did not i have no idea what I'm doing you think you're going to beat your brother absolutely i don't know i'm going to kick his ass and this crew of competitors from our spicy challenge videos are all seeking redemption honestly I'm not going to be confident this time cuz last time I was confident and I was the first one to get out if that's the first one that So um let's just say I'm going to do my best now while we're underway the perfect burger may be different for all 50 contestants but I have a feeling there might be a style that many prefer smash smash smash smash smash smash smash smash not the first person to think of that i'm imagining everybody's probably doing the smash patty i'm trying to switch it up a little bit i kind of have a good idea of what you like on your burgers but I'm kind of going to go my own way with I like that that's what you should do i usually do pretty thick nobody wants a tall burger like you got to unhinge not everybody's built like that guys hannes is I'm not so far it looks like we have some burger enthusiasts and some that may not quite be experts if you will fun fact I never even tried a burger until a few years ago looked up on YouTube today how to cook a burger i was debating like looking up how to cook a burger on the way here and I was like you know what i already haven't done it i'm just going to wing it wow now fortunately after 30 seconds some people were seasoning their meat but with a wide set of strategies i'm going to season it with salt and pepper hopefully not too much on the salt just to make sure that doesn't overpower the MSG the exact amount of seasoning is going with the pinch that I feel that God gave me signed me today i'm just thinking of like what my dad makes when he makes me a burger but if it turns out bad I'm not doing what my dad did the next big decision buns and there were a lot to choose from we wanted to keep it fair and give them lots of options classic sesame bio English potato pretzel and Kaiser wow you got you got those like right off the bat well no i just I just need the names not going to lie surprisingly a lot of people actually started with the sauces i'm not sure that that's where I would have started but they're claiming the meat will cook quickly i say that with air quotations feels a bit risky with only 10 minutes 1 minute in so how's everyone doing so I usually make a homemade mayo we're making our own mayo folks you got plenty of time you're so encouraging i wasn't expecting it i don't know that's going to be I think the largest smash burgers i got goblin hands please don't judge me i'm like my technique unfortunately I literally have to no well actually we don't have a ranking for technique we only have rankings for texture flavor appearance and creativity and also the sear and the toast that's it you got this yeah with 8 minutes to go many are smashing their patties try not to light myself on fire that didn't burn any facial hair off you look great oh thank you thank you got to of course season them we had a lot of classic salt and pepper but we also had a few outliers put some good peppers in there so we're going for a seasoned smash little garlic butter base that's fun while some were making great time others were falling behind crunchiness is important my reaction 8 minutes are you serious you've already lost 2 minutes dude you better start cranking i just feel like it can't be that hard we're going whole burger i forgot to put salt on it can I have green food dye i did this wrong is this like some sort of Mayard trick what i'm going to put a little more on top it's going to be okay it's going to be green in the middle ain't the best but I'm definitely not going to be the worst here with 4 minutes gone burger started to take shape for better and for worse i don't even know if I would make a mayo in this competition so this could be our best sauce ever the sauce the color is weird it's almost turning green okay the green burger ooh it's looking kind of crazy oh okay hold on this is crazy give people time to spare the last time that I was timed doing something has to be a test in high school wow you really do lose track of everything honestly this is kind of great it's showing how difficult this is cuz Vicram is a very good cook i will say it's different cooking not in your own kitchen there's always another layer of stress when you cook in a place where you don't know where anything is i made I'm I'm so scared right now time management i like to say I'm good at it but let's be honest with ourselves i'm going to get it there probably 5 minutes on each side well you don't have 5 minutes on each side you are right yeah I feel so rushed let's flip these onions rushing is always the enemy of cooking you're looking good dude the rain did my hair earlier now some folks are starting to throw down oh snap am I the cleanest so far i feel like people are pretty messy you are not the cleanest no all right patty down that is the corner of death if you go near that area something will fall over look a lot of unique cooking styles and honestly some pretty great techniques so far i'm proud how would you rate your cooking skills on a scale of 1 to 10 five out of 10 five and a halfic maybe like a six probably around a six seven give it a solid seven seven and a half seven or eight probably like an eight and while some people seem to back up their high rating others with love not so much patty is not cooked enough my cheese are the pit of despair do you cook a lot of burgers i used to and then I saw myself in the mirror and I'm like I should stop picasso says no mistakes just art patty's looking nice very good in my yard i was seeing some great Mayards let's go all right that's our best Mayard my guy love it and some you know not perfect now there were some buns that were straight up burnt and abandoned i burnt the buns and some buns were beautifully toasted but these folks went the extra mile with their buns steaming toasting on both sides using mayo instead of butter and even garlic bread type situations we could do mayo on buns or we could go Sriracha mayo here come no toast we're going to toast a Sriracha mayo toasting the Sriracha mayo I have never seen in my entire life there was unmelted cheese which can happen and perfectly melted cheese great technique was on full display nice seasoning of tomato key have to i was shocked and truly couldn't have been more proud to see that many people salted their tomatoes thank you vicing our tomato first time I've seen this i like that how much time do I have 3 minutes remaining oh my god all right i'm losing part of it oh no come on i feel one most essential part is definitely the cheese almost forgot the cheese i forgot about cheese completely forgot about the cheese oh we didn't do cheese oh I did everything wrong i feel like there's something I should add i don't know why don't we pull like a waterburger style burger and just throw on two cheeses this is so not how you do this 2 minutes remaining wa let's mix this up i got so nervous i think I lost some of what I was planning to do i don't think I need to put lettuce on it do cowboys eat lettuce hell no we don't all wrapped up now I feel a little more in the zone is that me sorry about that no you're good all right we're melting the cheese wa three pickles exactly cook cook we getting it i'm smelling the spice look like a little charred maybe some people not me boom cajun persuasion on oh no cheese all right roll with it love it boom onion too salted little crunchy calling it drop that sauce on i should probably taste it it's good thank god i kind of like a burger that fits in your mouth if things don't fit in your mouth what's the point of life we're almost done this is good practice i'm trying to do some meal prep if I can do this in 10 minutes that's what I like to hear dude so many peopleing out there y'all got time 1 minute left 50 burgers 50 unique versions and now it's all coming down to this sauces are being spread toppings landing and kings being crowned you said 1 minute holy i want to put on the arugula so that way it adds a depth of flavor that's kind of a sick idea super creative okay plating oh my god bang dude we still got some we still got some got a burger being assembled upside down that's not against the rules he turned it upside down he flipped it right side up just like that i'm going to be honest with you i don't think I've ever seen melted cheese upside down like that decided to switch it up for you i also didn't plan that far ahead i've never seen someone assemble a burger in a pan we can't get too much sauce we can't get lost assemble some pickles full stack it up ah man we got it a little extra sauce on the top here we're done here that's how we do it going back for the sear with 40 seconds left i feel like Spongebob right now when he like tucks the pickles in no mustard i don't think it'll go with it this doesn't feel planned actually no i'm going to keep it simple the mustard swoosh even it's simple there we go oh sh look at that look at that no one's going to tell me that the egg is sitting there the corner of death reigns again the egg fell to the crack not the end it was a crucial part boom burger topping on oh my bacon the bacon's gone dude bacon's out beautiful that's time wonderful work i think it looks beautiful how do you feel about it i feel good about it without the rushing at the end I would have knocked it out of the park but I think I could have managed my time a little better for a burger that had green food dye in it i don't hate it it has a fat patty that's all I ask for in a burger i'm happy with this didn't salt and pepper the meat as it's cooking but you know I think it's okay feeling pretty confident about this one my yard's down we got the buns toasted didn't go too heavy on the salt or pepper i went off vibes and I feel strongly about it i want to eat it it looks like a top tier burger i feel very confident i feel mostly good i think the patty might be a little less done than I wished by far the most technique intricate burger we've had so well done really yeah no one's made a mayo that's really hard i feel good about it as long as it beat Shayen that's the way to go honestly I'm pretty impressed cuz I came in here with absolutely no plan this is the burger that I grew up eating hence why the pants aren't fitting these days i would actually demolish that burger right now i feel really really good i feel good i hit the simplistic tones I wanted to hit with it to be honest could have been better there's always going to be room for improvement but I'm content this was an emotional roller coaster and it was finally time to taste every single one of these creations i carefully evaluated every burger based on these categories and gave each one a total score out of 50 total points and after a grueling battle of mind and stomach I finally selected our top 10 neither of the brothers made the top 10 but in this battle the Burger by Kashave did take the edge none of our first time burger makers made the cut either but seriously shout out to them for even attempting here are our top 10 and somehow our very own Vicrim took the number one spot with a Go Jong Patty Melt inspired burger it's a huge redemption for the last time he cooked on the channel however he is disqualified this was just for fun it's not really fair because he quite literally watched every burger get made so we have a new top 10 this is the real leaderboard and these are our top three finalists moving on in the number three spot we have Cole returning to the final three in yet another challenge his pickled vinegrett propelled not only his burger's flavor but creativity points to secure a top spot in the number two we have David with a sleeper of a burger despite the appearance not the most beautiful I'm honestly shocked with how delicious it was the beef flavors shine through quite well with the topping choices that he had on there with the sweet heat from his Sriracha sauce i love that he didn't make an aioli out of it it was actually just spicy sweet heat really kicked it up to another level and finally also in the top three for the second time ever Seeking Redemption Jackson now I thought he had the best executed simple burger in this entire competition dang near perfect sear the beef flavor came through beautifully the acidity and salt levels were borderline perfection $5,000 is on the line for our winner second place gets $1,000 and third place walks away with absolutely nothing in this round we've increased the time limit to 20 minutes and we'll give each contestant access to tools and ingredients that they did not have before however they need to make three burgers this time for three separate judges all with different pallets will they remake the burger that got them here or are they going to switch it up at the last minute it's all to play for and it starts right now with the man in pole position Jackson i feel like if my burger was good enough to get me to the top three I don't feel like I need to change up anything if it ain't broke don't fix it right we're going two patties per burger considering we're going smash patties you know it takes like a minute i know the last time I forgot to season both sides of the patty i only seasoned one side that was like the only thing I would have changed the sauce that I made there were some sweetness elements to it but also like savory with the mayonnaise and with the mustard kind of added like a little extra tang this guy's probably ready to flip by now that's looking good almost forgot what kind of chef would I be if I didn't have cheese okay sauce is done feels like I'm working at McDonald's right now we're going to give this a smash again just any other Tuesday yeah I'm making burgers i used these last time little bio bun action kids never forget your salt and pepper see buns in give this guy a flip this guy's kind of up so we're going to scrap this one in life mistakes happen just got to pick yourself up and just go again thinking back to the last time the spicy chicken sandwich video the thought of coming in second place it's haunted me to this day i'm not going to lie so I'm hoping today that we land the plane and and we take it all the way these probably have a little bit more toast than I would have liked but we'll call that golden brown with a little extra side of brown the beef is ultimately the star of the show right so you need to let the beef do the talking and then all the other elements that you add to it just need to elevate it oh can't have that all right redo on the buns ooh the pressure's on you can feel it this one's not my best work but this one's better and that's it feeling pretty good let's do it we're looking good but what will our judges say i'm joined by Chef Christian and Chef Fermy Nunees now remember we're judging on many things: texture flavor sear and toast appearance and creativity like it's no toast beautifully toast half toast immediate thought i got a lot of texture in mine but I got a lot of char in mine got a lot of black pepper not a lot of sauce where are you getting the texture then the onions and the charred bread yeah your your bun is not toasted so you're not getting anything i have like good notes and bad notes i feel like we all got a different burger how do we judge that so part of this challenge is consistency across the board and because everybody got a different burger the scores may be different inconsistency in product equals inconsistency in output mine was a little bit on the drier side it didn't have much texture and there was not a lot of sauce compared to what I tasted in y'alls it was juicy it was okay seasoned it wasn't perfectly seasoned mine had a great amount of texture i will say on mine the texture I thought was very good the patty was a little overcooked but it was well compensated with good sauce amount juicy and crunchy pickles and the toast on my bun withtood all of this juicy fatty saucy burger without falling apart and getting mushy and it still had crunch on the toast which I wasn't expecting flavor wanted to be there it was masked by char i think it was too hot whatever he cooked it on flavor of the patty wasn't bad it was missing some salt which I'm going to deduct some points for the flavor overall was tasty it wasn't like the most flavorful one mine didn't have a lot of sauce it was very dry the meat was a little bit overcooked and lots of heavy black pepper not a lot of texture on mine it's almost like all the sauce that was made just went into my burger appearance they were related but you could tell they were different the technique needs to be top tier to win so on to the next our next finalist is Cole who like Jackson suffered a heartbreaking loss at a top three finisher in our spiciest chicken sandwich video so can he finally put the defeat behind him it was a little inspirational to lose the first time but to be back and try to get a chance at redemption is something I live for i'm going to do the OK City style i'm going to throw down some onions to press the burger in cuz that way the onions will start to carromise a little bit to be inside the burger i was studying a lot last night lots of videos lots of tutorials i'm toasting my buns i like to set them on a cooling rack so they keep their crispiness sometimes simplicity is the best thing which is not necessarily what I might go for but we'll see i'm about to smoke the cheeses i don't know what flavor this is i'm still as confident as I was before going for number one i'm going to take this out now we have smoked American cheese it's going to be single patty cuz I don't have enough time to do a double patty we're going to make the classic burger sauce of the planet i think my burger will stand out because of the amount of different sauces I learned last night who doesn't like MSG shout out Uncle Roger and a little bit of worisher to be honest with you I have no idea what the hell that does but it goes in a lot of stuff go ahead give this a little mix and now I'm going to make my arugula salad i'm definitely nervous about trying stuff for the first time i've done some things in my home kitchen but there's a lot more to work with here oh that's fire i've never tried black truffle oil by itself gives it a little bit of depth balsamic vinegar is a mix so I'm going to put the sauce on the bottom i hope that's not cold over the top this is going to come down to the wire i'm panicking again cuz I thought I had so much time i hope that my burgers were well cooked enough i wish I waited a little bit to cook them but I'm very confident the creativity and the depth of flavor that this is going to have there should be a good balance will altering the recipe that got him here earn Cole his $5,000 prize or heartbreak yet again mayard caramelization i see excitement in our eyes good sauce quantity on both sides i love that the arugula is dressed son of a i can smell the smoke now really good meat to bun ratio i'm going in you get a little bit of sweetness i think it needs a little bit of acid i agree it's a sauce that has MSG in it it has way too much MSG I've noticed has an adverse effect on acid i could be wrong about this but like in my personal experience when I add too much MSG to a sauce that's acidic you round the flavor if you get a bite of this pickle though there's pickle in the sauce i think diced pickle ah it's good now the buntoast is great i'm getting like crunch texture really really solid juicy no dryness salt levels I think are almost there i appreciate the little bit of smokiness to it that's nice sear on the meat is better visually I think this burger pristine as a burger it's not over complicated which is great creativity it's up there it's well executed i think it needs finetuning i think it would take it for an oil change for tuneup the question is can the final one beat this our last finalist is David the man who he thought would never even start his burger let alone finish he really surprised me but will he bring another winner and possibly a new burger style to the finals it's going to still have the same elements hopefully improvements that the judges can appreciate preparing section i've met my plaus so I'm going to start doing the cooking i remember I used potato buns before we're not here for health we're here for good tasting so a lot of butter time really flies when you're very nervous this was never about me going against other people the root cause of the stress is cooking in front of a camera is very different from cooking at home this is where I'm going to do a slight deviation i'm going to try to make a cheddar crisp by frying this in the pan and as a lactose intolerant person you know I love cheese so I like to pile that on there i think I'm going to do a single patty i usually would do double but I'm too scared to do a double i'm going to add a little bit of the seasoning i'm just here to cook food and the addition of that not looking like an idiot and look at that nice golden brown so I'm feeling a lot more in control now i have a plan this is where preparing at the beginning really does help everything down the road so now I'm feel confident enough to do a second patty do I want to put more stuff no those are distractions i have a plan and I'm going to stick with the plan but it looks like the patties are near to completion so I'm going to start assembling my burger i'm fine with doing it a little bit overcooked cuz I don't want to give food poisoning to the judges gun to my head if someone asked me what did I learn from Joshua Wiseman video it is season your tomatoes i love onions with burgers like that duet between a fatty patty and like the slight bite of a fresh onion three banana peppers some crispiness and finally the sauce okay every kid has a hat that is done i think we just dive in dude all right part of me took thinks I took a bite of a cheese it the layering of cheese could be a little bit more well distributed this is supposed to be a $5,000 burger we're going to be critical i was surprised how good the flavor was despite the fact that the beef was pretty underseasoned all the salt in mine is coming from the cheese not the meat the sear is what dropped it down the most the only sear on there was the cheese everything else was a little bit lackluster on a positive note I love the cheese skirt i think that's a cool ad i think that is a good technique the sauce is adding the seasoning that you need it's sweet spicy you didn't get any banana pepper i got you bro there you go i think the sauce is arguably the best part of the burger this is a non mayo based burger sauce for once I love it the only texture I got was the crispy onions and the cheese the meat to bun ratio is a little off to me cuz like when you pick this up these potato rolls are so soft they kind of shrink into nothingness and you've got like two sheets of paper and like all this meat you got to get through so to me it was a little much creativity was there right i think the idea of what this could be was there the execution was a little bit lacking the appearance it looked fine but it's not a burger that I'm like rushing to take a picture of and putting on my Instagram and now the moment of truth we will now score our top three and decide who cooked us a $5,000 burger okay so we've made it you really made it to the finale out of 50 people that to me is already a win and I think all three of you guys should be super proud i think everybody that is on the docket right here made fantastic burgers through and through both the first time you made one and the second time you made one but we must truly pick an ultimate winner now before I give these scores we enjoyed all the burgers so this is not a question of what was good what was bad this is a question of the highest level of precision down to the finest detail the toast the way the burger looks what's the meat to bun ratio how much sauce in it so we're starting with third place could be anybody so in third place with a still pretty strong score was unfortunately my dear friend Jackson i'm sorry it was close still a delicious burger i will say a good toast on the bun patties tasted good all the burgers were different we didn't have the exact same burger crust it kind of skewed our rankings i think if the burgers were more consistent there would have been a better battle that said seasoning flavor burger was nice moving on now it's down to the final two all those scores were close in general that said these two scores were even closer first place gets the grand finale prize of $5,000 for a singular burner with a score of 113.5 across the board first place goes to Cole with 113.5 the winning burger weirdly enough one of the most simple burgers out of the three and the thing that won it I think for all of us was the fact that it was simple but elevated and all the smaller details in the burger from the toast to the patty to the meat to bun ratio the precision the technique was the closest to what we were looking for so congratulations Cole second place David you still get a little bit of a prize jackson I'll give you a kiss on the cheek cuz you're still a beautiful man and I love you very much you killed it subscribe bye hey