Fantastic burgers made in minutes #GrillMates

Schwartz have released a new range of homemade burger mixes and we've been putting them to the test. They come in two varieties, Classic Steakhouse and American Smokehouse, and I was surprised to see that they're in liquid (like runny relish) rather than powder form. The instructions on the back of the pack give you various ideas of things to do with them - burgers obviously, but also meatballs or koftas on skewers and I think they'd be great as a non-spicy, family-friendly filling for fajitas and tacos too.

I started off with the Classic Steakhouse, which contains mustard, garlic and black pepper. I kept things simple, adding it to a pack of beef mince and a finely chopped onion.

After giving it a stir, I used my hands to shape them into patties - no need to add an egg, they held their shape perfectly.

I cooked them on the Optigrill which gave them a great stripy, ridged look. They tasted lovely - not overly seasoned but just like good quality, fresh burgers bought directly from a butcher.

For the second sachet - American Smokehouse, with tomatoes, smoked paprika and garlic, which has a lovely BBQ sauce flavour going on - I decided to jazz things up a bit and make meatballs with mozzarella in the middle.

I again added the mix to a finely chopped onion and a pack of mince and gave it a stir, then chopped the mozzarella into chunks.

I took a handful of meat, squashed it flat in the palm of my hand then wrapped it around a piece of cheese. They held their shape perfectly but did tend to fall apart during the cooking process so I'd be tepted to add an egg to the mixture to help hold it all together next time.

The meatballs were lovely though. The GrillMates gave them a lovely rich smokey BBQ flavour which perfectly complemented the gooey cheese in the middle. Clean plates all round !

RRP : £1.49

Disclosure : We received the products in order to write an honest review.