The Best Classic Burger Recipe – Perfectly seasoned juicy homemade hamburgers. This easy recipe only needs a few ingredients.
How do you make a great burger?
I’m a firm believer that a truly great hamburger doesn’t require a lot of ingredients. You only need a handful of seasonings and some good ground beef. The beef you use for burgers makes all the difference.
What type of beef is best for burgers?
A lot of my recipes call for lean ground beef. Not this one! The best beef for making hamburger patties is 80% lean and 20 % fat ground beef. You really need the fat in the meat to make juicy flavorful burgers.
The Best Hamburger Recipe
*Note: The full printable recipe card is at the bottom of this post.
- Add 80% lean ground beef to a large bowl.
- Add Worcestershire sauce, seasoning salt, garlic powder, and pepper.
- Mix with your hands until well combined.
- Divide the beef into fourths.
- Use your hands to form 4 hamburger patties ¾ inch thick.
- Use your thumbs to make an indention in the middle of the patties.
- Grill over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes on each side.
- Serve on hamburger buns.
- Top with your favorite traditional burger toppings (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, etc.)
How to make a great Cheeseburger.
This burger recipe makes awesome cheeseburgers! Just add a slice of cheese to the top of each burger patty about 1 minute before they are ready to come off the grill. This will give the cheese enough time to melt. I highly recommend sliced provolone cheese on these.
What should I serve with hamburgers?
Watch the step by step recipe video for The Best Classic Burger below.
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The Best Classic Burger Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds 80% lean 20% fat ground beef or ground chuck
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 1/2 teaspoons seasoning salt
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- Optional: 4 slices of cheese
- 4 hamburger buns
- Optional: hamburger toppings - lettuce tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard, mayo, etc.
Instructions
- Preheat the grill to 375 degrees F (medium-high).
- In a large bowl, add the beef. Sprinkle evenly with the Worcestershire sauce, seasoning salt, garlic powder, and pepper. Use your hands to mix the ingredients until they are just combined.
- Divide the meat mixture into fourths. Take ¼ of the meat mixture and use your hands to press it into the shape of a hamburger patty that is about ¾ inch thick. Make an indention in the middle of the patty to prevent bulging in the center of the hamburger as it cooks. Repeat with the remaining meat mixture, making 4 hamburgers.
- Place the burgers on the grill. Cook 4-5 minutes on the first side. Flip the burgers over and cook an additional 4-5 minutes, until the burgers have reached the desired doneness.*
- If adding cheese, lay a slice of cheese on each burger patty about 1 minute before taking the burgers off the grill, so the cheese has a chance to melt.
- Serve the burgers on hamburger buns with optional hamburger toppings.
Notes
Nutrition
Check out all of my great ground beef recipes.
This is my go-to burger recipe!
I almost made it to the half-century mark without making burgers from scratch – don’t know why but I think I thought they were too difficult for me. Anyway, these are so good and so easy. I use 1 lb of ground beef and make 1/4 pound burgers – the perfect size for us. And I discovered the other day, I was out of seasoning salt (!). I could have made my own, but being lazy, I used some Old Bay seasoning instead and we loved it. Thanks for a great burger recipe.
It really is perfect.
Excellent burgers! Made them tonight and were a huge hit! These will be my go to from now on.
My family and I love this recipe and have enjoyed it at grill outs many times. My question is how could the recipe be modified for either stove top cooking (maybe stove top grill pan) or oven baking? It’s 0 degrees in Chicago so we’re not grilling outdoors any time soon. Thank you!
An electric frying pan set at 375F produced burgers with a light ‘char’ on the outside, and juicy tender meat on the inside. Much simpler than the bbq, and a lot warmer, too!
This IS a great recipe! Thank you!!
Made these tonight and they were delicious! My kiddo inhaled hers too. Thank you for this recipe.
Wonderfully juicy and tasy!
Can sea salt be used instead of seasoning salt?
I don’t buy seasoning salt, so I used roughly 50% onion powder 50% salt, slightly heavier on the onion. The burgers taste delicious.
Seasoning salt isn’t pure salt, so a straight substitution with sea salt (or table salt) may be a little too much salt.
I was looking for a simple recipe and this was perfect. The only modification I will make in the future is to lessen the salt. I found it to be a bit more salty than I am used to but I also have cut down on my sodium content. I used roasted garlic powder and it gave it a bit more flavor. Delicious and highly recommend. This will be my go to burger recipe from now on. Thank you so much.
Perfect!
We grilled these for New Years. They were a hit. Juicy and just the right amount of flavor! I will use this again.
It is the perfect recipe. The burgers taste so good. It is my second time making them using this recipe. Thank you.
Love these burgers. So easy, so delicious!
Hi can you please tell me if it’s safe to freeze them after making them
Easy recipe most ingredients on hand just follow the simple directions on this one and you will have a very tasty burger I added pepper Jack and cheddar cheese and tried for the first time Trader Joe’s Organic Sweet Spicy mustard sauce delish !
Try it, delicious
Awesome Hamburger! My hubby loved it!! Just enough seasoning and was juicy delicious.
Can I use pork instead of beef on this one?
Perfect proportion of seasonings. Thanks!