After eating these “western” style bacon cheeseburgers that I started making almost a year ago, I cannot eat similar burgers from fast food or other common restaurants. I’m not kidding, I will not eat mediocre or even relatively decent burgers with bacon, onion rings, and BBQ sauce as snobby as that sounds. Doing so is heart-wrenching because I know how good such a burger could be and I want the one that I make at home although I’m not always up for doing the work.
To make this burger you’ll need to make a Bacon Weave and Holy Onion Rings. I’ve actually deep fried my bacon weave a few times since the fryer was already going. The bacon weave doesn’t come out as pretty but it works. I strongly recommend making the Holy Onion Rings. If that is not possible you could buy onion rings from the freezer section at your local grocery store and crisp them up in the oven or toaster oven but this will give you a burger that is only really good as opposed to a knock-your-socks-off-too-good-for-words-I’m-just-going-to-keep-eating, burger. The choice is yours. Finally, I am a really big fan of using telera rolls for burgers and I will tell you why. Mainly, I love these rolls because of their chewy (but not too chewy) crust and their really soft center. I also love a round roll because I can remove a little bit of the bread from the top and create some room for the burger toppings. If you cannot find telera rolls in your area (try finding a Mexican market if you cannot find them in your regular market) then my next choice would be a kaiser roll.
When I assemble my burger, I put some BBQ sauce (I really like Sweet Baby Ray’s brown sugar BBQ sauce for this) on the bottom piece of bread. Then I add my burger that has melted mild cheddar (processed cheese is sometimes comforting and nostalgic for me but it has no place in this burger). Next, my bacon weave goes down and the onion rings are on top of that followed by some more BBQ sauce. On the top bun, I put I light layer of mayo and a little bit of red and black pepper but that is purely optional. This burger is a little time intensive to make but it is beyond worth it.
