To celebrate National Burger Month, we’re sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from the blog, Simply Being Mommy.

Yield: 6

Ingredients
2 lbs ground sirloin (90/10)
1 egg
2 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato paste
1 teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon onion powder
½ kosher salt
12 slices Tillamook Cheddar Cheese
12 slices bacon, cooked and cut in half
6 pretzel buns

Preparation
Preheat grill to high heat. In a large bowl, combine first seven ingredients. Make sure not to overwork the meat. Divide meat mixture into six even portions. Make hamburger patties, making sure not flatten too much or pack too tightly. A loosely packed patty makes for a juicier burger.

Depending on how you like your burger will depend on how long you cook it. Grill for about 5-6 minutes, or until you notice the juices on top of the patty. Once you see the juices, flip and cook for an additional 4-5 minutes. Only flip your patty once. If you flip more than once, you will disrupt the juices and that makes for a dry burger.

If your bacon is not already cooked, you can cook it while your patties are cooking on the grill. I like to cook my bacon in the oven so that I don’t have to watch it. To cook bacon in the oven, line a pan with foil. Line the bacon on the pan and put into the oven. Turn the oven on to 400 degrees and set your timer for 17 minutes. Viola! Make sure the bacon goes into a cold oven, not hot.

I used pretzel buns, but you could use whatever bun you want. To assemble my burgers, I put a piece of cheese on the bottom of the pretzel bun, topped it with the patty, put another slice of cheese, added four pieces of bacon (2 whole slices) and then topped it off with the top of the pretzel bun.

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By Tillamook

To celebrate National Burger Month, we’re sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from the blog, Stetted.

Overview
Around here, grilling season means any day that doesn’t have a high winds warning, but there’s still something special about cooking outdoors in the warmer months. Maybe it’s the excitement of not having to turn on the stove or oven. After all, grilling doesn’t count as cooking, right?

Green chiles are a common ingredient in the Southwest, and every year food lovers in Austin go completely bonkers for the new crop of Hatch chiles. Hatch chile season isn’t until August, but most stores carry tinned roasted green chiles alongside the jalapenos and salsas. You can also swap in a fresh Anaheim or Poblano pepper and roast it yourself, if you like. Note that the heat can vary on peppers, so be sure to try a bit of it before adding to the meat in case you want more or less heat. Topping with Tillamook cheese slices, avocado, and pickled onions makes this a hot-and-cool burger full of flavor. There’s also bacon, because why not?

Yield: 4

Ingredients
1 pound ground grass-fed beef
4 slices thick-cut bacon, cooked until crispy and crumbled
¼ cup roasted diced green chiles (such as Hatch variety)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 Tillamook Natural Medium Cheddar Cheese Slices
4 hamburger buns
Butter
Sliced avocado
Pickled onion

Preparation
Preheat grill. Mix together beef, bacon crumbles, green chiles, salt, and pepper. Divide mixture into four equal parts and shape into patties, creating a small well in the center of each patty. Cook burgers 3-4 minutes per side. While the burgers are cooking, butter tops and bottoms of hamburger buns. In the last minute of cooking, add the buns to the grill butter-side down and grill for 1 minute. Remove buns to serving plate, and place burgers on bottom halves, topping with cheese slices immediately. Top burgers with sliced avocado and pickled onions, and enjoy!

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By Tillamook

To celebrate National Burger Month, we’re sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from Brittany’s blog, Naturally Estes.

Ingredients
Thin large hamburger patties (we made 4 burgers so we needed 8 patties)
Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese, slices
Hamburger buns
Shredded cheese
Cream cheese
Bacon chunks
Chives
Jalapenos
Seasoning salt & garlic powder

We made two types of burgers; one regular stuffed and then one kicked up a notch with a little heat. We’re in Texas, what else could you expect?!

Preparation
For the spicy “Texas” option you’ll combine cream cheese, shredded cheese, jalapenos, chives, and bacon. If I were you, I’d also add a shot or two of Texas Pete (or your favorite hot sauce) to the mix. Then for the regular, yet still very yummy, stuffed version combine cream cheese, shredded cheese, bacon, and chives together. Really the beauty of these burgers is that you can stuff them with whatever you want. Maybe you want to add mushrooms or olives…have at it!

Add a dollop of your desired “stuffing” mixture to the center of a thin hamburger patty. Then place another patty on top and pinch the two patties together. Once you have the edges pinched, I sort of shaped the burger again so it looked like a nice plump patty. Make sure you keep your burgers in order so you don’t forget who has which stuffed version. If my husband had the “Texas” version, he might die, ha! Next sprinkle seasoning salt and garlic powder on both sides of your patties. Then grill those babies!

Once your burgers are almost done, place your Tillamook cheese on top so it can melt. Yummy! We also lightly coated the buns with butter and flash grilled them. That way they were crisp and warm.

Enjoy!

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By Tillamook

To celebrate National Burger Month, we’re sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from Emily’s blog, 52 Mantels.

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
⅓ cup finely chopped onions
1 teaspoon ranch dressing powder
¼ teaspoon salt
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, cooked and diced
1 egg, beaten
4 slices of Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese
4 hamburger buns

Preparation
Preheat grill to medium heat. Combine ground beef with the next 5 ingredients. Divide in 4 and form each section into a patty. Grill hamburger patties until desired doneness. During the last 1 minute of grilling, top each patty with a slice of cheese. Serve on hamburger buns with desired toppings.

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By Tillamook

To celebrate National Burger Month, we’re sharing burger recipes from some of our favorite Texas friends! This recipe comes from the blog, 7 on a Shoestring.

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
¼ cup mayonnaise
½ cup BBQ sauce
8 bacon strips
1½ tsp minced onions
Tillamook Sliced Medium Cheddar Cheese
Kaiser rolls
Lettuce
Tomato
Onion

Preparation
Cook bacon and dice 4 slices into small pieces and set aside. Use the other 4 slices for garnishing the top of the burger. Combine mayonnaise and BBQ sauce in a small bowl and add bacon bits and minced onions to mayonnaise/BBQ mixture. Then add ground beef and mix well.

Shape ground beef mixture into hamburger patties and grill burgers until juices run clear…or desired doneness. Top with Tillamook cheddar cheese and cover until cheese in melted. Garnish with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and bacon as you like. Spread preferred condiment over kaiser roll and serve with your favorite side.

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By Tillamook

Bacon, there’s no denying it’s delicious on just about everything (especially things involving cheese!)  So, after a little research, I decided to take on the challenge of making my own.

I found this great video tutorial, which I used to guide me through the process.

Here’s a summary of the steps involved and some snapshots from my process:

1. Pick up a pork belly from your local butcher. Ask them to leave the skin on the pork belly. This helps develop the flavor, and you can cut it off after it’s smoked.

2. Cut the pork belly into manageable chunks so each chunk can fit in its own big Ziploc bag. Add the spices and sugar/salt rub to the pork belly and then put the pork into the Ziploc bags. Set the bags in a cool area. (I used my garage in the winter. This is ideal because the temperature doesn’t change too much.) If you have an outside fridge that isn’t opened that often that would work, too.

3. Mid-week, move the bag around to make sure the sauce has been created (the salt extracting liquid from the pork belly mixing with the spices) and is fully covering the pork-belly. 

4. Take the pork belly out of the bags, rinse off, and allow it to dry for 24 hours. You can let it sit on an oven rack (but make sure no one turns on the oven!) The above photo is what it looks like after drying for 24 hours.

5. Smoke the pork belly in a smoker according to the directions, but make adjustments based on the size of pork belly you buy.

6. Cut off the skin once the pork belly has cooled.

7. Use a slicer to slice up the bacon.

Would you take on this challenge at home? It was a lot of work, but absolutely delicious!

By Mary

What better way to celebrate the season than with butternut squash and apple?

We LOVE soup at our house! It could be 90 degrees outside and soup still gets thrown out as a dinner option!  We typically rotate through our top three favorites (loaded baked potato, beer cheese, and chili). So when I announced that we were having butternut squash and apple soup for dinner, there was a less than enthusiastic response. It took some convincing (and the promise of bacon in the soup), but ultimately I won – and I am so glad I did, not only because I had a butternut squash to use, but because it was delicious!

I used the recipe here as a jumping off point, but then added a few of my own tasty touches. I promised bacon, so before I added the butter and veggies, I diced up some bacon and put it into the pot to crisp up. Once the bacon got a little crispy, I then added the veggies and followed the rest of the directions.

Without hesitation, I served it with a dollop of Tillamook Premium Sour Cream as suggested. And for good measure I also added some shavings of Tillamook 3 Year Vintage White Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese on top (if you can’t find the 3 year old, any of our other Vintage White Cheddar varieties would be delicious!)

Butternut Squash & Apple Soup

Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash (3-4 lbs, cubed)
2 large Gala apples, peeled, cored and chopped into dice-sized pieces
1 tablespoon Tillamook Butter
1 small white onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
4 ribs celery, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
4 cups reduced-sodium vegetable broth (or homemade stock if you have on hand)
Sage (as a garnish)
Salt and pepper to taste

Jump over here for step by step directions.

Enjoy!

By Candace

I love cooking. It makes me happy and I could spend a whole day in the kitchen and have a blast. Sometimes the hardest part of cooking is deciding what recipes I want to make! If you’re in the same boat as me, here are some wonderful recipes with Tillamook Cheese that will get you inspired for the autumn cooking season.

Tillamook Smoked Cheddar Biscuits with Crisp Bacon & Apricots

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
5 tablespoons cold, Tillamook Unsalted Butter 5 slices bacon, cooked crisp and chopped/broken into bits
⅓ cup chopped dried apricots
¾ cup Tillamook Smoked Medium Cheddar Cheese, shredded and chilled
¾ cup buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°.

In food processor or mixer, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and pepper. Add butter and pulse/mix until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Transfer flour mixture to a large bowl. Stir in bacon, apricots and smoked cheddar cheese until well combined. Add buttermilk and stir until mixture just forms a dough. Gather dough into a ball and on a lightly floured surface knead gently 8 times.

Roll or pat out dough to 1 inch thickness. Use a sharp, round cookie cutter to cut out biscuits from dough. Combine scraps and re-roll scraps and repeat process until you have used up the dough. Bake biscuits in middle of oven 15 minutes until tops are golden brown.

Makes 8-10 snack size portions

Tillamook Scalloped Potatoes

Ingredients:
8 cups sliced potatoes (6-8 medium potatoes)
¼ cup Tillamook Salted Butter
¼ cup flour
2½ cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1 cup Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese, shredded
½ cup Tillamook Sharp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 cup chopped onions
3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

Thinly slice potatoes. Keep in cold water until sauce is ready. In a saucepan, melt butter, add onions and cook slightly. Stir in salt, pepper and flour. Blend until smooth. Blend in milk and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until thick and smooth.

In a lightly greased 3 quart casserole layer in half the potatoes and top with half of the cheese, half of the parsley and half of the sauce. Repeat with the top layer.

Bake covered for 45-50 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are done.

Crab and Cheddar Bisque

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons Tillamook Salted Butter
½ cup diced onions
⅓ cup diced carrots
⅓ cup diced celery
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 bay leaf
¼ cup flour
1- 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup clam juice
3 cups chicken broth
½ – 7 ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons fresh chopped tarragon, divided
½ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon Tabasco Sauce
3 cups (12 ounces) Tillamook Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar
Dry sherry (optional)
9 ounces flaked crab meat
½ cup Tillamook Sour Cream

Directions:

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onions, carrots, celery, garlic and bay leaf. Cook, stirring frequently until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add flour, and cook, stirring constantly for 2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, clam juice and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens, about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat, discard bay leaf and stir in chopped peppers.

In a blender, puree the soup in small batches until smooth. Pour bisque through a fine mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. Bring soup to a simmer and stir in cream, 1 tablespoon tarragon, black pepper and Tabasco Sauce. Remove from heat. Add cheese and stir until melted.

Serve hot and garnish each bowl with a splash of sherry, a dollop of sour cream, crab meat and remaining tarragon.
Serves 6

Browse our complete stock of delicious cheese recipes here.

By Laura