While grinding meats for burgers is nothing new, this is what I have come up with for an economical but very tasty substitute for the 20% fat beef chubs available in the grocery stores. In our area, we pay typically $3.99/lb for burger, which is more expensive than some steak!
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The ground blend costs less than ground beef and contains bacon (purchased on sale @$2.99/lb), petit sirloin ($2.49/lb), and pork loin ($2.99/lb). Here's my general setup - I use a grinding attachment on my wife's stand mixer.
Trimmed pork loin at the left, petit sirloin on the right, and bacon up top. The spices I use are at the top of the image, and the sage at the far right came from our garden. I purchased each of the meats for less than $3 per pound, ant that is about a dollar less than the price for ground beef in the grocery store.
Burgers are grillin' (my wife hardly lets me use her grill, and this was no exception - she's off camera to the left)
Finished patties - tender and moist ( we do not manipulate nor press the ground meat very much). Sometimes we stuff them with blue cheese.
I like to slop all kinds of things on my burgers - a habit left over from when I was a kid in Ohio, and a dollar bought me 4 hot dogs and permission to put as much condiment as I could on them (I was a hungry kid with not much money)
Tender and juicy; you can taste the bacon, pork and steak all melding in your mouth in a perfect harmony of balanced flavors (yeah, I know... how can you tell with all that mustard and catsup!) However, if you have not tried fresh sage in your ground meat, you might consider it - the herbal notes are like nothing else in a burger.
