Do you prefer hamburgers and sandwiches store bought or home made?

[luvMIdog]

I like to make my own hamburgers and sandwiches. I can buy the exact bread and cheese I like for each sandwich. I can get a good crispy caramelization on my meat patty. I can pull the sandwiches out of the oven hot and toasty.

How about you? Store bought or home made?

[hlthe2b]

1. So many food-borne outbreaks in recent years, that alone has me (mostly) making my own.

The problem is I don't go through food quickly so having perishable veggies and the like on hand is iffy. So for that reason alone, my own sandwiches are pretty blah in comparison to what I could go out and get.

[enough]

2. Nothing like homemade for hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, burritos, etc,

but then there's nothing like your favorite local takeout place when you really don't want to cook. Having been cooking homemade since my mother went back to school in 1960, I really love knowing where to go for something delicious when I don't feel like cooking.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Homemade so that I can control the calories.

[applegrove]

4. Growing up, every Saturday in the summer we had french bread

with ham, roast beef or smoked meat slices, old cheddar cheese, hellman's real mayonnaise and Strub's pickles. It gave my mom a break from cooking as we kids would help getting it ready and lay it out as a production line. I don't like any other sandwiches these days. Can't stand the industrial mayonnaise they put commercial sandwiches.

[we can do it]

8. Yum!

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Home cooking is the way to go

[shenmue]

6. Must admit, I tend to go out

[drray23]

7. homemade.

I even make the bun. A nice brioche type of bread that I coat with sesame seeds. It beats any store bough hamburger bun by miles.

[LuvLoogie]

9. Depends on the burger and on how many people

you would be cooking for. You can make a great burger, but you have to spend a lot of time shopping, prepping, grilling.

When all is said and done to make 4 burgers you're in for $40 to $60 and 4 to 6 hours of your time. And for 1 burger? Way expensive. Even if you're cooking for 8, you're still only eating one or two of them.

[rurallib]

10. Yes!

[Phoenix61]

11. Both

Turkey burger from TGIF is way better than what I make at home. I like my own sandwiches better than store bought.

[safeinOhio]

12. I use lamb burger at home.

Can't get that eating out.

[Chipper Chat]

13. No burger is better. Try this:

Grilled Cheese sandwich

Heat up a sandwich skillet. Throw on a tsp of real butter. Use 2 slices of Hawaiian bread with Kraft American cheese (Not cheese PRODUCT). On the top slice add some Lowry season salt. Before you flip it over add another tsp of butter. Grill to golden brown. Eat it quickly and before the cheese gets cold. Enjoy it with your favorite potatoes chips and a Dr Pepper.

[csziggy]

17. I make what I call smashed cheese sandwiches ( or maybe call it a panini?)

Heat up a small skillet with my bacon press in it. Put a slice of sharp cheddar cheese on two slices of homemade multigrain sandwich bread (I posted my recipe in the Cooking & Baking forum a while back). Spray the pan with butter flavored cooking spray, put the sandwich in, spray the top of the sandwich with the cooking spray and put the bacon weight on top.

Cook for about 2 minutes per side.

Using the cooking spray saves calories. Yeah, I'd rather use a pat of butter per side. <sigh>

[Chipper Chat]

19. love the fried grains

Nutty flavor really comes thru your way

[Still Blue in PDX]

22. My momma always squished "toasted cheese sandwiches" with the spatula.

Butter was melted in the pan or on the grill, not spread on the bread before placement. I didn't know there was any other way to do it!
Yours with the multigrain bread sound wonderful.

[csziggy]

23. I used to just fry my cheese sandwiches and sometimes squished them

But when my Dad was in the hospital during his final illness, we often ate at the hospital cafeteria. There was an excellent grill station and I noticed that cook put a weight on the grilled cheese sandwiches.

When I got home, I realized that the bacon press my parents had given me would work the same. I have a little skillet that is just the right size for a sandwich and the bacon weight. First couple of times, I spread butter on the bread first but it was too greasy. Same for melting it in the pan - if there was enough butter to cover the bottom of the pan, the sandwich was greasy. So I went with the butter flavored spray and that is just right.

This bacon weight looks a lot like the one I have:
https://www.baconaddicts.com/products/bacon-press-cast-iron-weight-round
They don't say if that one has a pig impressed in the cooking surface - mine does, as well as having one on top.

Since I bake bacon, I have no use for a bacon weight. I'm glad it now has a use!

[Still Blue in PDX]

33. That is so cool! I don't eat bacon, but I'm getting that bacon press! nt

[csziggy]

36. I was given mine and never used it until I started using it for sandwiches

It was just a bit of decor collecting dust.

I also make tomato cheese grilled sandwiches by adding very thin slices of tomato with the cheese. They tend to be a little drippy, but when tomatoes are in season, they are wonderful.

[Mosby]

38. No offense, but yuck.

The best bread for a grilled cheese is pullman, sourdough, ciabatta, or rye.

And definitely do not use "cheese products" like kraft american.

[Trailrider1951]

14. Homemade is best, even though I prefer Flame-Grilled Boca burgers to the meat variety

In fact, tonight's dinner was chopped onions and Bocas fried in veg oil, seasoned with black pepper and soy sauce, served on a bakery-made onion roll with a side salad. MUCH better than any burger that McD's, Wendy's, Burger King, etc. has to offer! And healthier too!

[AngryAmish]

15. In my town there are around twenty restaurants with world class burgers.

I cannot top Owen & Engines toppings. But no one can top a half short rib, half Chuck burger ground at home five minutes before fire and cooked over wood fire. Little onion, maybe some chive chedder, ketchup and mustard.

[Generic Brad]

16. Home made

I make better food than a lot of restaurants. If I didn't, I wouldn't always have to struggle to keep my weight down.

[csziggy]

18. Sandwiches I make at home so I can get them just the way I like them

But for the few times a year I have hamburgers I'd rather go somewhere to get it with fries. I don't deep fry so the only way to get good fries is to go out for them. Most of the time we go to Five Guys for their burgers and awesome fries. One of their small cheeseburgers each and one serving of fries split are more than enough for my husband and I.

[yuiyoshida]

20. if I have all the ingredients

I don't mind making stuff at home. I am especially good at making Maki Rolls!

[femmocrat]

21. Home made, because I hate eating out.

We get take out occasionally, but not burgers.

[TeamPooka]

24. I love cooking but there is something special about a great sandwich made at a good deli

the same goes with a great burger.
I'm in California so the local burger stand is like our place of worship out here.

[sakabatou]

25. Anything made with meat, I make myself

Otherwise I buy from the store.

[tazkcmo]

26. I prefer

not to digest food prepared by an under paid, poorly trained, over worked, living in poverty and pissed at the world food service worker like many I've worked with over the decades. So, if I do eat out, it's at a place where I know the people that work there. These are professional food service workers I have worked with and trust them. They also are compensated fairly because they're professionals and work for professionals.

Interesting how many responses to this question cite the concern of food borne illness. I wonder if any of these people are the same ones that hold the view that food service can be done by Anybody, requires no skill at all, is easy, simple and unworthy of compensation getting anywhere near 10 bucks an hour.

[chillfactor]

27. neither....

I prefer restaurant burgers.

[rogerashton]

28. Homemade, unless

it comes alongside a pint of draft beer. Which it usually does.

[CrispyQ]

29. I let Bobby make my sandwich for me.

He owns the local sandwich/coffee/ice cream shop. They make a beautiful swirled dark/light rye bread & wonderful sourdough bread. They have soup & quiche, too, but I always get a sandwich. Oh & their pie is to die for. They make little miniature ones. Last time I got strawberry-rhubarb.

[roscoeroscoe]

30. home made, nobody beats Mrs. Roscoeroscoe

BUT - we both love the Habit in Ventura for lettuce wrap burgers or chicken wraps. Habit is the all-time best!

At home, it would be free-range chicken breast with sriracha sauce made with Ojai mayonnaise, active-culture relish, organic active mustard, home-made low sugar catsup, etc.

[Runningdawg]

31. Most of the time homemade

but ever so often I get a craving for a grease burger from some middle-of-nowhere mom and pop place. I can't duplicate a burger fried on an 80 year old grill. I also can't duplicate the taste of a pastrami on rye from an authentic Jewish deli.

[NightWatcher]

32. I'm getting sick of restaurants. I make an excellent bison/beef burger at home.

Two points. First, restaurants don't seem to be the quality they were just a few years ago. All of their ingredients come from the same place and are of lesser quality.

Second point. I love to make beef/bison burgers out of 2/3 part fresh ground sirloin and the other 1/3 ground bison (and sometimes I like to throw in a little pork sausage to the mix).

[LisaM]

34. I definitely prefer making my own sandwiches. With hamburgers, not always.

A lot of restaurants make amazing burgers, and they get their own buns sourced, too. They can get a better quality of burger, sometimes, too. I live in an apartment and don't really have the equipment to cook burgers as well as some restaurants do (I can cook a decent burger - I just wouldn't pit it against some really great restaurant ones I've had).

I love making sandwiches, though. A lot of restaurants don't put them together quite right, and they often have a limited choice of bread.

The one sandwich I wish I could still get is the good old lunch counter grilled cheese, though. With the demise of lunch counters, the good restaurant grilled cheese kind of went away.

[IrishEyes]

35. I really like to cook so I prefer to make sandwiches at home.

It is cheaper and healthier to make food at home. Plus, I can make it just the way I want. I only occasionally eat meat and that is when I'm out at a restaurant. If I have a hamburger then I want it to be at a good diner with a side of sweet potato fires and a vanilla coke, a root beer or a milkshake.

[crazycatlady]

37. Burgers either way

Sandwiches definitely homemade (if at all). I'm allergic to nitrates (in most deli meats) and if I do have a sandwich, it is something like cheese or PB&J.

[jmowreader]

39. My pastrami reubens are to die for

Heat your oven to 350.

Make a sauce from mayo, ketchup and horseradish. Put the mayo in a coverable dish, add ketchup until it looks right to you, then horseradish, fresh-ground pepper and celery salt until it tastes right. DO NOT, whatever you do, put Thousand Island dressing on this. That's something Donald Trump would do.

Lightly toast two slices of rye bread.

Put a quarter-pound of the best pastrami you can get your hands on into a sieve for a few minutes to drain. Only a Trump supporter uses Buddig for this. Once it stops dripping, remove it and put a forkful of genuine imported-from-Germany sauerkraut in to drain.

Once everything has stopped dripping, spread sauce on both pieces of bread. Put a slice of good-quality Swiss cheese (Sargento is okay, but I usually buy Tillamook; sliced at the deli counter would be better) on each piece of bread. Put the meat on one piece of bread. Put the kraut on top of that, then the other piece of bread. Wrap in aluminum foil and stick in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and eat before the thing has a chance to get cold.

[Mosby]

41. That sounds really good. Nt

[Jamaal510]

40. I like my burgers better.

What I do is make the patties with ground beef, then when I'm finished cooking them, I soak the grease out of them using some paper towels so they end up healthier (I do this for my sausage links, too). I also put more lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on my burgers than the average burger joint. I don't like to cook or make my own burgers, but they're more satisfying than anything I tasted from McD's, BK, Jack in the Box, or Wendy's.

As for my sandwiches, I prefer the store-bought ones overall. I used to like Subway, but I started getting soggy bread from them. So I got sandwiches from local corner stores.

[Awsi Dooger]

42. Sometimes a combination

Lately I've been using a Buy One/Get One coupon for a free Whopper at Burger King, but ordering it with lettuce, tomato and onion only.

Then I bring it home and switch out the bun for lower carb wheat bread, add avocado mayo, no-sugar relish, and organic ketchup.

Very good. I have no idea why I didn't think of this sooner. I was worried it wouldn't taste like a genuine Whopper. It does. Sometimes I bring the kit to the restaurant and eat in, especially during trips like a recent one to watch the Players Championship golf in Jacksonville.