How to host the perfect burger night

A shopping list, timeline, and guide for the best summer BBQ

In culinary school every day we had to come to class with our recipes, ingredients, and a timeline printed. We would spend the first half hour of class collecting ingredients, measuring and preparing things (mise en place), and setting up our station with all the equipment we needed. At the time I hated it and much preferred a “grab as you go” method of cooking. I strongly disliked making the timelines and liked dealing with my printer even less. But unfortunately I’ve come to really enjoy how efficient it makes the cooking process and I really see the value in it. It makes things flow seamlessly and leaves you with a very clean kitchen by the time guests come over.

Our neighborhood friend group came over for an impromptu dinner last night and we had a little burger soiree. It was pretty limited prep for a delicious summer dinner. I also just want to say how good living walking distance from friends is for your mental health. I HIGHLY recommend weekly dinner parties. They don’t have to be super long or high effort, just some burgers with margs and friends is all you need! We did watermelon margs (my husband is loosely NA so I included NA margs in prep), my husband put together some chips and salsa, our friends brought over wine, we grilled up some delicious burgers, and had a quick and easy gluten-free peach crumble with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Watermelon Margs and Wine

This is a shopping list, timeline, and recipe guide for how we pulled it off!

How To Use This Guide

I would print all of the recipes, shopping list, and timeline. Read them through prior to starting, make any edits or changes you want, and use them as a guide for how to throw a seamless dinner party.

What’s on my Ideal Burger Night Menu?

Starters: Chips and salsa

Drinks: Fresh Watermelon Margaritas

Sides: Grilled Corn and Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Main: Grilled burgers with tomato, avocado, red onion, and romaine

Dessert: Peach crumble with Vanilla ice cream

The Timeline and Recipes

This timeline breaks down the process of the order I would cook everything in, generally how long it takes to do stuff, what prep you can do the day before, and what you should do day of with specific instructions on how to cook the burgers. Serving alcohol is not on the timeline since I find that’s more of an as as needed basis.