Meat Dishes
Homemade Hamburgers
Proper homemade beefburgers: coarsely minced chuck with about 20% fat, shaped loosely, salted only on the outside, seared hard in a hot pan and cooked through. Below the recipe: which beef the chefs use and why, simple variations from smash burgers to lamb, and how the Hamburg steak became the hamburger.
- Serves 4
- Prep 15 min plus 30 min chilling
- Cook about 10 min
- British and American
Variations: smash burgers, cheese, chef’s blend, lamb, veggie ↓
Method
Keep the mince in the fridge until you need it: cold fat holds the patties together. Divide it into 4 equal pieces of about 150 g (5¼ oz). Using a light touch, press each one into a round patty about 1.5 cm (⅝ in) thick and about 1 cm (½ in) wider than your buns, because burgers shrink as they cook. Do not knead, squeeze or pat them smooth: a loose, slightly rough patty is a tender, juicy burger.
Press your thumb into the centre of each patty to make a shallow dimple, about 5 mm (¼ in) deep. It stops the burgers swelling into a dome as they cook. Lay them on a plate lined with baking paper, cover and chill for at least 30 minutes (or up to a day) so they firm up and keep their shape.
Get everything else ready before you cook: wash and dry the lettuce, slice the tomato, onion and gherkins, and set out the sauces. Toast the cut sides of the buns in a dry frying pan or under the grill until golden, so the juices do not make them soggy.
Heat a large heavy frying pan, cast-iron pan or ridged griddle pan over a high heat until very hot, then brush it lightly with the oil. Only now season the burgers: sprinkle both sides generously with salt and pepper. (Salt mixed into the mince earlier makes the meat firm and springy, like a sausage.)
Put the burgers in the pan, leaving space between them (cook 2 at a time if your pan is small). Leave them alone for 4 minutes, until a deep brown crust has formed underneath and they release easily. Do not press them down with the spatula: that squeezes out the juices.
Turn them over and cook for another 4–5 minutes. If you want cheeseburgers, lay a slice of cheese on each burger for the last minute, add a tablespoon of water to the pan and cover with a lid or a large upturned bowl so the steam melts the cheese.
Check that the burgers are cooked right through before serving: cut into the middle of one and make sure it is steaming hot, with no pink meat and clear juices, or use a probe thermometer: the centre should reach 75°C (167°F). If they need longer, turn the heat down a little and cook for 1–2 minutes more.
Let the burgers rest for 2 minutes on a warm plate. Spread the bun bases with mayonnaise or mustard, add lettuce, the burger, tomato, onion and gherkins, and ketchup on the top half. Serve straight away.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Rate this recipe
Tried it? Rate it.
The readers’ average appears here once 5 readers have rated it.
One vote per recipe per browser, and you can change it. We keep only the stars: no name, e-mail or IP address. How ratings work
Which beef? Chuck, and why
The beef matters more than anything else in a burger. Almost every chef we checked agrees on three things: use chuck (or a blend built on it), keep the fat at about 20%, and mince it coarsely.
| Cut | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Chuck (chuck steak, braising steak from the shoulder; US: ground chuck) | The best single cut, and our choice. | It has a good balance of lean to fat (around 15–20%) and plenty of beefy flavour, at a modest price. Kenji López-Alt (Serious Eats) tested eight cuts and says that if you have only one choice at the butcher, chuck is the one. Felicity Cloake (The Guardian), Jamie Oliver, the Hairy Bikers and Delia Smith all use it. |
| Short rib | For richness, mixed with chuck. | Very well marbled, rich and nutty, so it keeps a burger juicy. Too rich on its own, which is why chefs blend it. Heston Blumenthal uses 2 parts chuck to 1 part short rib and 1 part brisket; Hawksmoor suggests chuck or short rib. |
| Brisket | For a deeper, beefier flavour, in a blend. | Flavoursome but leaner and a little grainy when minced, so it is a supporting cut: a quarter of Heston’s blend, and part of Kenji’s Blue Label blend with sirloin and oxtail (short rib is his suggested swap for the oxtail). |
| Rump, sirloin and fillet | Not worth it on their own. | Tender but too lean, so the burgers come out dry. Felicity Cloake advises avoiding lean prime steak cuts such as rump; Kenji finds sirloin too lean on its own and uses it in a blend because it binds well. (Delia allows rump only if it has 20% fat.) |
| Lean or “extra lean” mince (5–10% fat) | Avoid for burgers. | The fat is what keeps a burger moist as it cooks; much of it renders out in the pan. Delia calls 20% fat “vital”, Hawksmoor works to a meat-to-fat ratio of about 80:20, and Kenji asks for at least 20%. |
Asking the butcher (the easy way)
Ask for chuck steak with about 20% fat, minced once through the coarse plate, on the day you cook. A coarse mince gives a looser, juicier burger than fine mince (Felicity Cloake, Hawksmoor). For a richer blend, ask for 300 g chuck, 150 g boneless short rib and 150 g brisket minced together (Heston’s 2:1:1). In a supermarket, look for beef mince labelled 20% fat; in the US, 80/20 ground chuck.
Mincing your own
You control the cut, the fat and the coarseness, and the meat is as fresh as it can be (Kenji López-Alt). Cut the beef into 2.5 cm (1 in) cubes, keeping the fat, and chill the cubes and the mincer parts in the freezer for 15 minutes until firm but not frozen, so the fat does not smear. Mince once through the coarse plate. No mincer? Pulse the chilled cubes in a food processor, about 225 g (½ lb) at a time, with 10–12 short pulses until coarsely chopped: do not let it turn to paste.
Handle it gently
Every chef warns against overworking the meat: shape the patties just firmly enough to hold together. Season only the outside, just before cooking: Kenji’s tests showed that salt mixed in beforehand dissolves some of the meat proteins and gives a dense, springy, sausage-like texture.
Variations
Five simple ways to change the main recipe. Each serves 4 and uses the same method unless it says otherwise.
Smash burgers
Thin, crisp-edged burgers with lots of browned crust. Divide the mince into 8 loosely packed balls of 75 g (2½ oz) and chill. Heat a heavy cast-iron or steel pan until smoking hot, with no oil. Put in 2 balls, cover each with a square of baking paper and press down hard with a sturdy spatula or the base of a small pan to about 1 cm (⅜ in) thick, within the first 30 seconds while the meat is still cold. Peel off the paper, season and cook for 2 minutes, until deeply browned. Scrape the spatula underneath to lift all the crust, flip, add cheese if you like and cook for about 1 minute more. Thin patties cook through quickly. Stack two in each bun with sliced pickles and finely chopped onion.
Cheeseburgers
Add the cheese after turning the burgers, as in step 6: a splash of water and a lid melt it in under a minute. Processed burger slices (American cheese) melt the most smoothly; mild Cheddar, Red Leicester or a Swiss-style cheese have more flavour. A strip of crisp bacon is a classic addition.
Chef’s blend burgers
For a richer, steakhouse-style burger, ask the butcher to mince 300 g (10½ oz) chuck, 150 g (5¼ oz) boneless short rib and 150 g (5¼ oz) brisket together, coarsely: Heston Blumenthal’s 2:1:1 ratio. Hawksmoor and the Hairy Bikers add a little finely diced bone marrow (about 50 g / 1¾ oz to 600 g / 1 lb 5 oz) for extra juiciness. Cook exactly as the main recipe.
Lamb burgers
Use 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) lamb mince with about 20% fat. Before shaping, mix in 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 crushed garlic clove and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint (no salt yet). Cook through exactly as for beef, and serve in buns or warm pitta bread with lettuce, sliced cucumber, crumbled feta and a spoonful of Greek yoghurt.
Vegetarian burgers
Try our Bean & Nut Burger, linked below, or griddle thick slices of halloumi or large portobello mushrooms (brushed with oil and seasoned) and serve them in toasted buns with the same toppings.
Useful kit
- Meat mincer (or a mincer attachment for a stand mixer): for coarse, freshly minced chuck at home. Amazon UK · Amazon US
- Instant-read digital meat thermometer: the surest way to know a burger is cooked through (75°C / 167°F in the centre). Amazon UK · Amazon US
As an Amazon Associate Cookeryonline earns from qualifying purchases.
See also
Chef’s notes
- Why cook burgers through? When a steak is seared, any bacteria on its surface are killed, so a steak can be served rare. Mincing spreads those surface bacteria through the meat, which is why the Food Standards Agency advises that burgers should not be served rare or pink at home, however good the meat. A thermometer takes out the guesswork: 75°C (167°F) in the centre, or 70°C (158°F) held for 2 minutes.
- Pink burgers are a restaurant option, not a home one. In the UK, restaurants may serve “less than thoroughly cooked” burgers only under strict, documented controls, with mince from a supplier specifically approved to produce it for that purpose. Even then the FSA says children, people aged 65 or over, anyone who is pregnant and anyone with a weakened immune system should only eat burgers that are thoroughly cooked. Good-quality or freshly minced beef is no safer served pink: the FSA says the quality of the meat makes no difference to the risk.
- On the barbecue: wait until the flames have died down and the coals are glowing, then cook over a medium-high heat with the same timings, turning once or twice. The thumb dimple matters most here. Keep raw burgers on a separate plate from cooked ones and use different tongs, and check the centre as in step 7: a charred outside can hide raw meat inside.
- No egg or breadcrumbs needed. Good fatty mince holds together on its own if it is cold and pressed together gently. Egg makes the texture denser and drier, and breadcrumbs make it more like a meatball (or the old-fashioned Hamburg steak, see the history below).
- Raw patties keep, covered, on the bottom shelf of the fridge (5°C or below) for up to a day. To freeze, open-freeze them on a tray lined with baking paper, then pack with paper between them. Defrost in the fridge overnight and cook within 24 hours.
A little history: from Hamburg steak to hamburger
.jpg){kind=link}
The hamburger takes its name from the German port of Hamburg. In the 19th century, cakes of chopped or minced beef were popular in northern Germany and became known in English as “Hamburg steaks”; the word “hamburger” is first recorded in 1884. The dish was probably brought to the United States by German immigrants.
In New York, the earliest known menu listing of Hamburg steak is from 1873, at Auguste Ermisch’s German restaurant, according to the food historian Andrew F. Smith. Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1906 edition) describes Hamburg steaks as finely chopped lean beef seasoned with salt, pepper and onion juice, with an egg if you like: much the same as the Hamburg Steak recipe card that this page replaces.
A “Delmonico’s menu of 1834” offering hamburger steak is often reproduced as proof of an earlier date, but it is a fake. Ellen Steinberg and Jack Prost showed in Gastronomica (2008) that it was printed in a typeface not used before the 1880s and probably came from a cheap eating house on Pearl Street, not the famous restaurant.
Who first put the meat in bread is disputed, and none of the claims can be proved. Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, says its founder Louis Lassen served the first hamburger sandwich, between slices of toast, in 1900, and the Library of Congress recorded the claim in its Local Legacies project in 2000. Rival claims include Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas, the Menches brothers at a fair in Hamburg, New York, in 1885, and Seymour, Wisconsin; the Hamburg and Seymour claims rest on oral history rather than documents.
The fast-food hamburger began in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, when Walter Anderson and Billy Ingram opened the first White Castle. According to the Kansas Historical Society, Anderson flattened the meatball-like hamburger of the day into a thin patty and cooked it quickly on a hot griddle with onions, much like a modern smash burger.
Sources for these notes
For the history above and the food-safety advice in the notes.
- Merriam-Webster: “hamburger” (from Hamburg; Hamburger steaks; first known use 1884)
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: “hamburger” (origin unknown; probably brought to the US by 19th-century German immigrants)
- Eater NY: Robert Sietsema, “Two Centuries of Hamburger History in New York City” (Andrew F. Smith, Hamburger: A Global History, 2008: Ermisch’s menu, 1873; the competing sandwich claims)
- Project Gutenberg: Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1906 edition), “Hamburg Steaks”
- Jan Whitaker, Restaurant-ing through history: “A famous fake” (Steinberg and Prost, “A Menu and a Mystery”, Gastronomica, Spring 2008)
- ConnecticutHistory.org (CT Humanities): Owen Rogers, “Louis’ Lunch and the Birth of the Hamburger” (rival claims rely on oral history)
- Library of Congress, Local Legacies: Connecticut, Louis’ Lunch (archived copy)
- Kansas Historical Society, Kansapedia: “White Castle” (Wichita, 1921)
- GOV.UK (Food Standards Agency): Burgers (cook burgers thoroughly; why a burger is not like a steak; rare burgers in restaurants; vulnerable groups)
- GOV.UK (Food Standards Agency): Cooking your food (70°C for 2 minutes or 75°C for 30 seconds; burgers should not be served rare or pink at home)
- GOV.UK (Food Standards Agency): Less than thoroughly cooked beef burgers: guidance for food businesses (approved suppliers)
- USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service: Ground beef and food safety (160°F for ground beef in the US)
How this recipe was developed
Our old Hamburg Steak card was a bun-less patty bound with egg and a lot of breadcrumbs (200 g beef to 100 g crumbs for 4). For this new recipe we compared how leading chefs and the best-rated recipes make a burger at home, and kept the simplest version that does everything right. The fussier ideas (Heston’s aligned mince strands, Jamie’s pulled oxtail, home-made buns and pickles) are left out.
- Chuck, about 20% fat, coarsely minced. Kenji López-Alt (Serious Eats) names chuck the best single cut and asks for at least 20% fat; Felicity Cloake (The Guardian) finds plain chuck does nicely and wants a coarse mince; Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and the Hairy Bikers (BBC Food) all use chuck; Hawksmoor works to 80:20 meat to fat, coarsely minced.
- Nothing but beef. Delia and the Hairy Bikers use no egg or breadcrumbs at all. Felicity Cloake found that egg made the Larousse burgers dry and fibrous; we left out the egg and breadcrumbs of the old card and of BBC Good Food’s 4.0-rated basic recipe.
- Light hands, a dimple, salt outside. Do not overwork the meat (Cloake); a thumb dimple stops doming (Hawksmoor, Leiths via Cloake, Serious Eats); season only the outside, just before cooking (Kenji’s salting tests; Jamie Oliver).
- Size. 150 g (5¼ oz) patties: Jamie Oliver uses 600 g for 4; Delia suggests about 110 g in a bun, or 225 g for a more grown-up version; Hawksmoor’s are 200 g.
- Hot pan, crust first, no pressing. Hawksmoor and the Hairy Bikers sear in a very hot pan or griddle and leave the burgers alone to form a crust; Cloake warns against squashing them; Jamie melts the cheese with a splash of water under a lid.
- Cooked through, then rested. Timings and the 75°C (167°F) check follow the Food Standards Agency, which advises that burgers should not be served rare or pink at home; Felicity Cloake rests her burgers for a few minutes; toasted buns from Cloake and Hawksmoor.
- Variations. Smash burgers from Kenji López-Alt’s Classic Smashed Burgers and Barney Desmazery’s Ultimate beef burger (BBC Good Food); the 2:1:1 blend from Heston Blumenthal; bone marrow from Hawksmoor and the Hairy Bikers; cheese melted under a lid from Jamie Oliver.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): 10 Tips for Better Burgers
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Mastering the Art of Burger Blending with Eight Cuts of Beef
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): The Blue Label Burger Blend
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Salting Ground Beef (The Burger Lab)
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): How to Shape a Burger for Grilling or Broiling
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji López-Alt): Classic Smashed Burgers (4.6/5 from 13 ratings)
- Heston Blumenthal (Business Insider): Heston Blumenthal makes the perfect burger
- Felicity Cloake (The Guardian): How to make the perfect hamburger
- Hawksmoor (The Telegraph): Hawksmoor’s classic burger
- Jamie Oliver: Ultimate British burger
- Delia Smith (Delia Online): All-American Half-pounders
- BBC Food (The Hairy Bikers): Classic beef burger (4.8/5 from 17 ratings)
- BBC Good Food (Barney Desmazery): The ultimate beef burger (4.6/5 from 67 ratings)
- BBC Good Food (Good Food team): Homemade beef burgers (4.0/5 from 109 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.