The Shake Shack 'Shroom Burger

Author Notes

My childhood was fueled by Dr. Praeger's Purely Sensible Foods' frozen veggie burgers—thin discs with real vegetable pieces (hey, is that a corn kernel?) that I would eat, alongside the rest of meal, with a fork and knife.

I enjoyed (even loved) Dr. Praeger's, but I did not think of them as burgers at all—neither "juicy" nor "satisfying," neither a treat to look forward to nor a complete meal. A Dr. Praeger's patty would have been eclipsed by a bun on either side and never posed a fair match to a meat burger. They were, as named, "purely sensible."

It wasn't until I tried the Shake Shack 'Shroom Burger that I realized veggie burgers needn't be sensible. Why coax vegetables (and, for most recipes, grains and binders and starches, too) into the shape of a patty? Vegetarian burgers can be entirely nonsensical and untraditional and just as messily delicious as any meat burger on the menu.

The 'Shroom Burger forgoes the constraints of the patty form to present a mushroom in its most dignified state—breaded, fried, and full of cheese. It's insanity! When you eat the sandwich, you work your way through the roasted mushroom barrier to hit the cheese geyser at its center. (Geyser is not an exaggeration: When you receive your 'Shroom Burger at the restaurant, you should let the burger cool for a few minutes, lest you risk a cheese eruption.)

Whenever I've ordered a Shroom Burger—which, not to get too emotional over a sandwich or anything, but these have been my hungriest, grumpiest, and most celebratory moments (3 p.m. after turning in my last college final; 10 p.m. after moving a 200-pound dresser into a fifth-floor walk-up)—the how of the matter has become a subject of conversation. Just how do they get the cheese in there? Is it with a giant syringe? A peculiarly hollow mushroom? An elaborate song and dance?

It turns out that you don't need to purchase a specialty cheese syringe (oh yes, these exist). The recipe, which is published in the book Shake Shack: Recipes & Stories is fairly simple to make at home, if you don't mind a bit of deep frying.

Simply roast the mushrooms, slice them in half through their bellies, then hide a ball of the filling—a mixture of grated cheese, onion, garlic, flour, egg yolk, and cayenne pepper—in between the top and bottom. Coat the reconfigured mushrooms in flour, beaten eggs, and panko breadcrumbs, then get them into the hot oil.

The panko will crisp, the cheese will melt, and you'll have a vegetable burger that can hold its own snuggled up next to a slice of tomato and between two buns. All you need now is a cold milkshake.

Reprinted from Shake Shack. Copyright © 2017 by Shake Shack Enterprises, LLC. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. —Sarah Jampel

Test Kitchen Notes

The 'Shroom Burger is the ultimate example that veggie burgers don't need to be just ground vegetables and grains. Nestled between a tender, sliced portobello mushroom cap is a glorious core of melty cheddar and muenster cheeses which seamlessly blends with the creamy, tangy ShackSauce smothered onto the soft potato buns. —Food52