Month: August 2025

• I made Ina Garten’s smashed cheeseburgers with caramelized onions.
• The recipe only calls for a few ingredients, and you don’t even need to fire up the grill.
• The burgers were perfectly juicy, and the simple toppings made the process easy.

Ina Garten might be best known for her oversized cosmopolitans and perfect roast chicken, but the celebrity chef has also released multiple burger recipes during her decadeslong career.

Ahead of Labor Day weekend, I decided to try one out.

Her smashed hamburgers with caramelized onions called to me because of their simplicity.

A number of the ingredients I needed for the recipe were already in my pantry, which helped me save money on buying supplies and was a testament to Garten’s flair for simple yet delicious recipes. 

Here’s how to make Ina Garten’s caramelized-onion cheeseburgers.

This recipe only requires a few basic ingredients, including onions.

You can find the full ingredient list and recipe instructions on Garten’s website.

I started by preparing the caramelized onions. The recipe calls for two medium red onions, thinly sliced.

I added 2 tablespoons of canola oil to a large nonstick pan over medium heat and then added the onions.

Garten says it should take about eight to 10 minutes for the onions to start to brown. I liked that this recipe didn’t require a grill, making it apartment-friendly for this New Yorker on a holiday weekend.

While the onions were browning, I began preparing the burger patties.

The recipe calls for a pound and a 1/2 of ground beef with 20% fat.

To make the burgers, you season the meat with Colman’s mustard powder, black pepper, and kosher salt.

I had never used mustard powder in a recipe before, but I was excited to see if it would enhance the flavor of the burgers.

I mixed the ground meat and seasonings in a glass bowl.

This was so much easier and simpler than adding an egg or a ton of other ingredients, like many celebrity chef burger recipes require.

I shaped the meat into four burger patties and placed them on a plate in the freezer.

The chef says the burgers should stay in the freezer for exactly 15 minutes, so I set a timer to ensure I didn’t go over or under the mark. I assumed this step was to help the burgers keep their shape when I added them to the cast-iron skillet.

After adding a teaspoon of sugar to the onions and letting them caramelize for a few minutes, I added a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

Garten explains that this step is to help deglaze the pan. 

After less than a minute, my onions were lightly caramelized and ready to add to the burgers.

I took them off the heat while I waited for the burgers to be ready to add to the pan.

I heated up a couple of tablespoons of oil in my trusty cast-iron skillet and waited for the burgers to be done in the freezer.

While this recipe does call for two different pans, it doesn’t require many extra bowls or equipment, which I appreciated when it was time to clean up.

I placed the burger patties in the cast iron and did not move them once they made contact.

Each burger patty should be about an inch thick. While my burgers weren’t the exact same size, I figured I did a good enough job and was able to use every last bit of the meat mixture.

To put the “smash” in “smash burger,” I pressed down firmly on my burgers with a spatula.

This definitely would have worked a little better with a metal spatula, as Garten suggests using, but I made do with the one I had in my kitchen. In the end, the burgers turned out well.

After the burgers had cooked on one side for three minutes, becoming perfectly crispy, I flipped them over and added my toppings.

I grated some Gruyere cheese to top the burgers and added the caramelized onions, too. Then, I placed a lid on the skillet to allow the cheese to melt completely and finish cooking the burgers.

After about two minutes, my burgers were done.

Garten suggests using sandwich potato rolls, such as Martin’s, for the burgers, so I did just that.

When I cut into the burger, it was perfectly medium rare.

I’m admittedly not the best at telling when burgers are done to my liking, but Garten’s timing worked out perfectly.

The burger blew me away — it was juicy and flavorful, and the onions added the perfect amount of sweetness.

This recipe is great for grill masters and burger novices alike, as you only need a few ingredients to get a delicious burger. Even my roommates were surprised by how tasty these simple burgers turned out. 

I’ll definitely be making these again for an easy dinner or even an end-of-summer party with friends.

President Donald Trump issued a warning that a “complete and total federal takeover of the city” could take place if Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser continues to share, what he claims are, “false and highly inaccurate crime figures.” 

“Washington, D.C. is safe again. The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and police are doing a fantastic job. They are out in force, and are not playing games,” said Trump via Truth Social in the early hours of Friday morning. “As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory.”

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Trump, who had earlier paid a visit to the police and military on-guard in D.C., went on to say that Bowser must “immediately stop” publishing the reports or “bad things will happen,” such as a complete federal takeover.

Bowser and other officials, including D.C.’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb, have strongly pushed back against Trump’s labeling of D.C. as the “most unsafe city” in the U.S.

On Aug. 18, a week after he announced the federal takeover, Trump—who maintains the government intervention was promoted by “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor” in the capital—claimed that city officials had put forth “fake crime numbers” to “create a false illusion of safety.”

Read More: Trump Puts D.C. Police Under His Control and Deploys National Guard

In January, the D.C. Attorney General’s office said that crime in the city was at a 30-year low—a stat Mayor Bowser cited when Trump announced his emergency federal takeover.

Furthermore, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) published data on Thursday, reporting that violent crime in D.C. was down by 27% in 2025 compared to the previous year.

This comes after reports that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into the crime data. Trump himself said that D.C. was under “serious investigation” for publishing what he has deemed to be “fake” statistics.

During his in-person visit on Thursday, Trump stopped by a Park Police Facility in D.C. An estimated 300 officers from U.S. agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), U.S. marshals, and the National Guard, gathered outside the facility as Trump spoke.

The President told law enforcement officials that crime numbers “are way down” following the federal takeover, which is set to last for 30 days from its initiation.

“It’s like a different place, it’s a different city… I’ve never received so many phone calls thanking me for what we’ve done in Washington D.C.,” said Trump.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who joined the President on the streets of D.C., said after the visit that no murders had been reported in the capital “because of the presence of law enforcement.”

Bondi announced on Thursday that 630 arrests have been made and 86 illegal guns seized in D.C. since federal officers were deployed around the city. Reportedly, 251 of those were arrests of immigrants in the country illegally.

A tense legal battle has unfolded following the Trump Administration’s intervention in D.C. On the night of Aug. 14, Bondi issued a directive appointing Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief Terry Cole as the capital’s “Emergency Police Commissioner.”

D.C. officials rebelled against the motion, with Schwalb writing a letter to Bowser that same night, calling Bondi’s directive “unlawful” and instructing Bowser that she had “no legal obligation to follow it.”

Read More: D.C. Sues Trump Administration Over Police Takeover and Rallies Against ‘Emergency Commissioner’ Appointment

Schwalb followed up by filing a lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Aug. 15, stating he was “challenging the federal government’s unlawful attempt to take over the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department” in an effort “to ensure that control of MPD remains with the Mayor, the Chief, and the people of the District of Columbia.”

“By declaring a hostile takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act, infringing on the District’s right to self-governance and putting the safety of D.C. residents and visitors at risk,” Schwalb asserted in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.

In an emergency court hearing overseen by district Judge Ana Reyes hours after the lawsuit was filed, the DOJ agreed to rescind its directive, no longer seeking to appoint Cole as D.C.’s stand-in police commissioner.

Bondi said on Aug. 16 that she had “issued a new directive to Mayor Bowser requiring MPD to provide the services found necessary by my designee, administrator Terry Cole, to comply fully and completely with federal immigration law and authorities, regardless of any policies MPD might otherwise have.”

Responding to the lawsuit, Bondi also accused Schwalb of opposing “efforts to improve public safety in Washington, D.C.”