How to make perfect burgers to barbecue at home, with blue cheese, avocado and pancetta
Guilty pleasures don't come any more pleasurable than a really great burger; if this recipe doesn't make your mouth water, you're most likely a vegetarian.

'Food snobs may try to decry, but I think a properly made and grilled burger, with proper add-ons is just about unbeatable,' says Brian George, founder of National BBQ Week.
We'd heartily agree on the burger: there is a time and a place for fine dining, and a time and a place for a slab of grilled meat oozing juices out of the side of a bun. As summer now looms, the time is now nigh; and you can also raise money for a good cause while you're at it.
National BBQ Week isn't until July 5-12 — it's their 25th anniversary — but they've been in touch to suggest that we invite friends and family around for barbecues, and make a £2 donation each to their Cure Leukaemia Barbi for Britain campaign on May 31st. If you serve them the burger on this page, that feels like it'll be an amazing bargain.
Recipe: Best-ever Burger with Pancetta, Avocado & Blue cheese butter
Ingredients
Makes four burgers
- 500g best fillet steak, minced
- 1 small red onion, finely chopped
- 1 green chilli, finely chopped/deseeded
- 1 tbsp sea salt
- 2 tsp’s rainbow peppercorn, crushed
- 8 rashers pancetta
- 1 Avocado, peeled, de-stoned and sliced
- 125g unsalted butter
- 75g blue cheese
- 4 sesame buns
Method
Soften butter and mix with blue cheese, form into a roll and chill.
Mix steak mince, onion, chilli, salt & peppercorn and form into four patties. Sear the patties on both sides on high then grill 3-5 minutes per side on medium heat
Grill pancetta rashers on foil tray on high heat.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Halve buns and lightly brush the cut half with olive oil, then warm through on medium heat.
Place slices of avocado on the pancetta rashers and allow to warm through.
Put the whole thing together and enjoy!
Toby Keel is Country Life's Digital Director, and has been running the website and social media channels since 2016. A former sports journalist, he writes about property, cars, lifestyle, travel, nature.
-
Graham Norton's elegant East London home hits the market, and it's just as wonderful as you would expect
The four-bedroom home in Wapping should be studied for how well it uses two separate spaces to create a home of immense character and utility.
-
Sign of the times: In the age of the selfie, what’s happening to the humble autograph?
When Ringo Starr announced that he was no longer going to sign anything, he kickstarted a celebrity movement that coincided with the advent of the camera phone and selfie. Rob Crossan asks whether, in today’s world, the selfie holds more clout than an autograph?