Gordon Ramsay Celebration Burger

The Gordon Ramsay Celebration Burger is the loaded one: a beef patty under melted Swiss, crisp applewood-smoked bacon, roasted plum tomato, baby arugula and sriracha mayo on a toasted brioche bun, topped with a portobello cap holding a runny-yolk egg. Gordon built it to mark his 10 millionth YouTube subscriber, and it's the burger for a birthday or a big weekend. The toppings are easy. The patty is where this burger is won or lost, so most of what follows is about the beef: the fat ratio, when to salt, keeping it cold, the thumb dimple and the 160°F finish.

What Is Gordon Ramsay's Celebration Burger?

Gordon Ramsay's Celebration Burger is a Swiss cheeseburger stacked with bacon, tomato, arugula and an egg cooked right inside a portobello mushroom cap, finished with sriracha mayo on brioche. Gordon published the recipe on gordonramsay.com as his 10 Million Subscriber burger and grilled it in his backyard, with 85/15 chuck and brisket, grated frozen butter, Swiss, applewood-smoked bacon, baby rocket, plum tomato and brioche. The same build, with roasted tomatoes and sriracha aioli, has also run as a featured burger at his Gordon Ramsay Burger restaurants. It isn't on the current Gordon Ramsay Burger menus, so your own kitchen is the place to get one.

This home version makes four burgers and keeps every component. Two changes make it easier on a weeknight or a party night: 80/20 ground chuck stands in for the butter-enriched blend (the fat lands in the same place, as you'll see below), and a skillet on the stove works as well as the grill. The mushrooms and eggs cook in the rendered bacon fat, so nothing goes to waste.

The Best Ground Beef for a Celebration Burger: 80/20

Use 80/20 ground chuck for a Celebration Burger, meaning 80 percent lean and 20 percent fat. That fat keeps a thick patty juicy: as the burger cooks, it melts and renders through the meat, and a leaner grind runs out of fat to spare by the time the center reaches 160°F. Chuck also has plenty of beefy flavor for the price, which matters under this many toppings.

Gordon gets to the same place another way. He starts with leaner 85/15 chuck and brisket and grates 2 ounces of frozen butter into every pound. Butter is about 80 percent fat, so the finished mix comes out around 22 percent fat, right about where an 80/20 grind sits. The frozen shreds stay in little pockets instead of smearing into the meat, then melt as the patty cooks. Either route gives you a juicy burger; 80/20 chuck is simply one less step.

For a thick patty that has to reach 160°F under a pile of toppings, 20 percent fat is the sweet spot. Our Gordon Ramsay burger breakdown covers how his restaurant burgers come together if you want to go further.

Salt the Outside of the Patty, Right Before It Cooks

Season Celebration Burger patties on the outside only, just before they hit the heat. Salt mixed into ground beef dissolves the proteins myosin and actin out of the muscle fibers, and those loose proteins turn sticky and bind the meat into a tight, bouncy mass. A sausage maker wants exactly that: the FAO guide to small-scale sausage production describes salt drawing out these salt-soluble proteins to improve binding and water holding. In a burger, the same reaction gives you a springy, sausage-like bite instead of a loose, tender one.

Gordon's recipe follows the same order: form the patties, chill them, then season all sides generously right before they go on the grill. Keep it to the last few minutes. A salted patty left sitting for an hour starts the same binding at the surface, so salt, pepper and granulated garlic all go on together at the end.

Keep the Beef Cold, Handle It Lightly and Dimple the Center

Shape the patties with beef straight from the fridge and touch it as little as you can. Cold fat stays in distinct flecks that render during cooking, while warm fat smears across the meat as you shape it and leaks out into the pan. Squeezing and kneading also packs the grind into a dense puck, so divide the beef, cup each portion loosely into a ball, flatten it to about 3/4 inch and stop there. Chill the shaped patties for 15 minutes so they firm up before they meet the heat.

Press a shallow dimple into the center of each patty with your thumb. As the meat heats, its proteins denature and contract between about 122°F and 140°F, and the edge tightens faster than the middle, which pushes the center up into a dome. The dimple starts the middle a little lower, so the burger finishes flat and the portobello sits level instead of sliding off. Make each patty about half an inch wider than the bun, since it shrinks as the fat renders out.

Cook the Celebration Burger Patty to 160°F

Cook the patty until an instant-read thermometer in the center reads 160°F, the USDA safe minimum for ground beef. Grinding carries bacteria from the surface of the meat all the way through it, so the middle of a burger needs heat that the center of a steak doesn't. Gordon's grilled version moves to the cool side of the grill at about medium-rare; with ground beef from the store, take it to 160°F.

Color won't tell you. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service found that more than 25 percent of fresh ground beef patties turned brown inside before they reached 160°F, and a safely cooked burger can still look a little pink, as FSIS explains on the color of cooked ground beef. A thermometer is the only way to know.

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For the crust, get a heavy skillet or grill grate properly hot and oil the patties rather than the pan, the way Gordon does. Maillard browning starts around 284°F, and a wet surface stalls at 212°F until its moisture cooks off, so blot the patties if they've wept in the fridge. Give them 4 to 5 minutes a side over medium-high and don't press down; flattening a burger with the spatula squeezes the rendered fat and juice into the pan. Lay the Swiss on for the last minute under a lid, or try the pan trick in our guide to melting cheese on a burger.

How to Cook an Egg Inside a Portobello Cap

Cook the egg right in the mushroom: sear the portobello cap hollow side down, flip it, crack an egg into the hollow, season it and cover the pan until the white sets. The cap becomes an edible cup, and it's the part that makes this burger look like nothing else on the table. Twist out the stem and scrape out the dark gills with a spoon first so the hollow is deep enough for a large egg. If a cap is shallow, let a little white run over the edge.

Sear the caps in the bacon fat over medium-high heat. Portobellos hold a lot of water, and they can't brown until enough of it cooks off; a hot pan drives that moisture out by evaporation so the surface can climb toward browning temperature, where the meaty flavor comes from. Once you flip them and add the eggs, drop the heat to medium-low and put a lid on. Egg white starts to set at about 140°F, and the trapped steam sets the top of the white in 4 to 6 minutes while the yolk stays runny.

A runny yolk is half the fun, but the FDA's egg safety advice is to cook eggs until both the yolk and the white are firm. For young kids, pregnant guests, older adults or anyone with a weakened immune system, keep the lid on a few minutes longer until the yolk sets.

How to Build and Serve the Celebration Burger

Build the Celebration Burger from the bottom up: sriracha mayo on both toasted bun halves, then arugula, roasted tomato, chopped bacon, the cheese-topped patty and the egg-filled portobello, with the top bun and a skewer to hold it together. Gordon chops the bacon instead of laying on whole strips, so you get some in every bite and the stack doesn't slide apart when you cut it.

Roast the plum tomatoes at 400°F for 15 to 20 minutes, until they slump and brown at the edges. Some of their water evaporates in the oven, which concentrates the flavor and keeps a juicy slice from soaking the bottom bun. In high summer, raw plum tomato seasoned with a pinch of salt, the way Gordon serves it, is just as good. For the sriracha mayo, stir 3 tablespoons of sriracha into half a cup of mayonnaise with a pinch of salt, taste, and add more if you like the heat.

Serve it with fries or a sharp green salad and a knife, because once the yolk breaks this is a knife-and-fork burger. If you like an egg on your burger, the Farmhouse Burger does it with Dubliner cheese and a fried egg, and the Truffle Burger goes rich and earthy. The whole lineup lives on our Gordon Ramsay signature burgers hub, and the Gordon Ramsay cookware guide covers the pans for the job. From start to finish, a Gordon Ramsay Celebration Burger takes about an hour, and most of it is the tomatoes roasting while you shape the patties.

Gordon Ramsay's Celebration Burger

Juicy 80/20 beef patties salted only on the outside, cooked to 160°F under melted Swiss, stacked with chopped bacon, roasted plum tomato, arugula and sriracha mayo on toasted brioche, and topped with a portobello cap holding a runny-yolk egg.

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Prep Time 35 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Servings 4 burgers

Calories 1000 kcal

Ingredients

  

Patties

• 1 1/2 lb 80/20 ground chuck (680 g), kept cold
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt or flaky sea salt
• 1 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 slices Swiss cheese

Toppings

• 4 large portobello mushroom caps
• 4 large eggs
• 8 slices thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon
• 2 plum tomatoes, sliced 1/2 inch thick
• 2 cups baby arugula
• 1 tbsp olive oil, for the tomatoes

Sriracha Mayo

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 3 tbsp sriracha, or to taste
• Pinch of salt

Buns

• 4 brioche burger buns, split
• 2 tbsp softened butter

Instructions

 

• Heat the oven to 400°F. Lay the tomato slices on a lined baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, until soft and browned at the edges.
• Stir the mayonnaise, sriracha and a pinch of salt together and set aside.
• Divide the cold beef into 4 equal portions. Without kneading, shape each into a loose patty about 3/4 inch thick and 1/2 inch wider than the buns. Press a shallow dimple into the center of each with your thumb and chill on a tray for 15 minutes.
• Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain on paper towels and chop roughly, leaving about 1 tablespoon of fat in the pan.
• Twist the stems off the portobello caps and scrape out the gills with a spoon. Sear the caps hollow side down in the bacon fat over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes, until browned.
• Flip the caps, crack an egg into each one and season the eggs with salt and pepper. Turn the heat to medium-low, cover and cook 4 to 6 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks still runny (longer for a firm yolk).
• Meanwhile, heat a cast-iron skillet or grill over medium-high. Season the patties all over with the salt, pepper and granulated garlic just before cooking, then brush them with olive oil.
• Cook the patties 4 to 5 minutes per side without pressing, until an instant-read thermometer in the center reads 160°F. Lay a slice of Swiss on each for the last minute and cover to melt.
• Butter the cut sides of the buns and toast them in a pan or on the grill for about 1 minute, until golden.
• Spread sriracha mayo on both halves of each bun. Layer arugula, roasted tomato and chopped bacon on the bottom buns, then the cheeseburgers, then the egg-filled portobello caps. Add the top buns, secure with a skewer and serve right away.

Notes

Gordon's way: use 1 1/2 lb of 85/15 chuck-and-brisket blend and grate 3 oz of frozen unsalted butter into it, mixing only until the shreds are spread through, then shape and chill as above. Cook ground beef to 160°F whatever the color. For young children, pregnant guests, older adults or anyone with a weakened immune system, cook the eggs until the yolks are firm. In summer, swap the roasted tomatoes for raw plum tomato slices seasoned with salt.

More Gordon Ramsay burgers: the Farmhouse Burger, the Truffle Burger, our Gordon Ramsay burger breakdown and how to melt cheese on a burger, or browse all Gordon Ramsay signature burgers.

Gordon Ramsay Celebration Burger FAQs

The questions that come up most: what's on the Celebration Burger, whether it's still on the menu, which ground beef to use, when to salt the patties, the safe temperature, the thumb dimple, and how to cook an egg inside a portobello.