with Ball Park Burger Buns & Kraft American Cheese

I’m in the process of cleaning out my fridge & freezer and came about one last frozen ground beef burger patty from Amazon Grocery which my daughter left in the freezer before she went away to college. I figured what the heck, I’ll give it a try.

I ate the burger patties in a bun with a slice of American cheese, mayo, Dijon mustard and ketchup. I had a small taste of the patty itself and I can’t say I liked it, it just tasted weird. As part of the burger, it tasted like your run-of-the-mill normal burger, the type you’ve had a thousand times. Nothing to get excited about, but nothing to complain about either.

The patties can be cooked from frozen and are made of just beef, with 15% fat content. Amazon Grocery also sells 20% fat patties, which might be tastier.

The 2 lb package of 8 burgers which was $9.60 a month ago, is now $11.20 – each 4oz burger patty is thus ~$1.50. At $5.60/lb these patties are about the same price of fresh 20% fat ground beef when it goes on sale at Safeway – but they do offer the convenience of being pre-made and frozen so you can use them whenever you need them. All in all, I don’t think I’d buy them again myself, but then again, I never bought them in the first place.

Amazon is, of course, one of the most evil corporations in the world as well.

I served the burger with a slice of Kraft singles American cheese. American cheese is a “cheese product” which takes cheddar and processes it into a more meltable substance. It has a pretty distinct flavor, with a metallic/bitter undertone, and it’s not something anyone would munch on. But it works on burgers and even grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s regularly sold in individually wrapped slices as the cheese is pretty sticky and it’s otherwise hard to separate from each other. These are also easy to pack in a lunch box. Kraft singles have long been the most popular brand for single serve slices, probably due to decades of intense advertising.

American cheese is so ubiquitous on burgers at burger joints and restaurants, that it becomes an acquired and familiar taste. It’s not something I particularly like, it has a strange bitter artificial taste, probably from the chemicals in it, so it’s not a cheese I normally use. Still, we have a huge package of it in the fridge as we use it to wrap the dog’s medicine in it, and I figure I’d give a try here as well. It went perfectly fine with the patty, giving it that familiar burger flavor and melting beautifully (I put it on the patty when I flip it). It’s really perfect for a no frills burger like this one. Do note that they are not vegetarian, as they include rennet.

Costco sells a 4lb package of American singles for $13, so each slice is 14 cents. On the other hand, Safeway sells the 24-oz package for $9, or 28 cents a slice.

Finally, I put it in a plain Ball Park burger bun, which I’d gotten at Grocery Outlet ($3.30, the regular price elsewhere). Ball Park is best known for its cheap hotdogs, and their buns are exactly what you’d expect: completely generic. There is nothing remarkable about them, but they were still fresh-ish a few days after I’d bought them and allowed the burger to taste like a burger, adding no off flavors.

In all, if you’re looking for an easy, generic burger, all these items worked well.

Ballpark buns are manufactured by Mexican based multinational Bimbo Bakeries.