Giada De Laurentiis is a beloved celebrity chef, known for numerous cooking shows in which she spotlights the Italian cuisine that shaped her upbringing. Even for American classics like burger patties, de Laurentiis finds a way to add some Italian flare. In her recipe for Caprese burgers, which she shared on her proprietary website, Giadzy, De Laurentiis injects extra flavor into the burger patties with the help of pesto.
Pesto is complex and bright, offering numerous herbal, nutty, cheesy, and earthy savory flavors to round out the umami-rich beef. With an abundance of basil and garlic, pesto saves you the trouble of adding diced aromatics to the ground beef. Plus, as a smooth, fairly thin paste, pesto will disperse and infuse easily throughout the ground beef as you knead it in. De Laurentiis uses a cup of fresh or store-bought pesto per 2.5 pounds of ground beef along with a basic salt and pepper seasoning and extra parmesan cheese to amp up the salty, nutty flavors of the pesto. She also garnishes her burgers with pesto-infused mayo and layers the patties with slices of tomatoes and fresh burrata mozzarella, so it lives up to its Caprese name.
If you really want to take these burgers to the ultimate Italian extreme, you can swap these classic Ball Park burger buns for bouncy and chewy focaccia bread. Give our recipe for homemade focaccia a try.
Variations on pesto burgers from out recipe bank
De Laurentiis gives cooks the option to use store-bought or fresh pesto. Store-bought pesto is certainly more convenient, and there are high-quality brands to choose; our ranking of store-bought pesto brands puts DeLallo Traditional Basil Simply pesto as the number one choice. While store-bought pesto is convenient, making pesto from scratch is easy and results in a much fresher taste. We have plenty of pesto recipes to whip up with the help of this highly rated bullet blender from Ninja. This bright and fresh pesto is as classic as it comes.
You can also use this cilantro pesto to put a more Southwestern twist on burgers. Blend cilantro pesto into the patties you’ll stuff inside these quesadilla burgers, garnished with a sweet, smoky, and spicy chipotle mayo. Cilantro pesto would also taste great in this black bean burger. Of course, pesto is a versatile condiment that pairs well with numerous types of meat, poultry, and seafood. Add pesto to these actually juicy turkey burgers and garnish with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. It would also bring a bright and tangy freshness to this recipe for salmon burgers, which already calls for basil and lemon juice in the mixture. You could then repurpose any leftover pesto into the mayo you’ll slather onto the buns themselves.
