Everything for people who love hamburgers. Recipes, calculators, sauces, troubleshooting and practical guides — no sign-up, no fuss.
Three free tools that do the work for you — built to actually be useful, not gimmicks.
Tell us your guest count, appetite and style. Get exact beef, buns, cheese and toppings, a copyable shopping list, a cost estimate, a prep timeline, the cooking order and an equipment list.
Calculate burger nightPick your patty, method, flavor, toppings and bun. We name your burger and give you ingredients, a method, and a printable recipe card.
Build my burgerInteractive internal-temperature guide from rare to well done, with the all-important ground-beef food-safety rule (160°F / 71°C).
Check temps📏 Patty Size Calculator 🥄 Sauce Builder 🩺 Problem Solver See all 8 tools →
Original, tested recipes with printable cards, tips, and the exact method.
The perfect classic cheeseburger: juicy 80/20 beef, a real seared crust, melty American cheese, and a soft toasted bun. Simple, foolproof, and exactly right.
View recipe →How to make a real smash burger with lacy, crispy edges and a deep crust. The exact technique, the right beef, and the one mistake that ruins it.
View recipe →A juicy beef patty, crispy bacon, and melty cheddar on a toasted bun. How to cook the bacon and burger so both come out perfect.
View recipe →A smoky BBQ burger with smoked cheddar, crispy fried onions, and tangy barbecue sauce. Built for the grill or griddle.
View recipe →A fiery jalapeño burger with pepper jack cheese, fresh and pickled jalapeños, and a cool spicy mayo to balance the heat.
View recipe →Juicy beef topped with buttery garlic-sautéed mushrooms and melty Swiss cheese. A steakhouse-style burger you can make at home.
View recipe →Fifteen original sauce recipes — special sauce, chipotle mayo, garlic aioli, BBQ and more — plus a builder that designs one around your flavor and diet.
The all-purpose special sauce: creamy, tangy, a little sweet. Five minutes, one bowl.
See recipe →Pick a flavor, heat level and diet; get an exact custom recipe with quantities and pairings.
Build a sauce →Browse every sauce by flavor or dietary need — dairy-free and keto options included.
Browse sauces →Burgers falling apart, dry, sticking, or raw in the middle? Diagnose the cause and get the fix.
Answer a few questions and get the most likely cause plus how to fix and prevent it.
Diagnose it →Every common burger problem explained — texture, cooking, shape, grill, cheese and food safety.
Browse fixes →Get the right raw weight, total meat, diameter and thickness — with shrinkage built in.
Size my patties →Authoritative hubs on the parts of burger-making worth mastering.
Everything on the thin, crispy, crusty style — technique, gear, and the mistakes to avoid.
Master smash →How to choose, toast, and match the right bun to your burger — and keep it from going soggy.
Bun guide →Cheese, onions, pickles, bacon and more — plus a pairing matrix for every burger style.
Topping guide →Who really invented the hamburger, where the cheeseburger came from, and how it went global.
Read the history →Gluten-free, keto, dairy-free, paleo — a burger fits almost any plan. Swap the bun, cheese, or sauce and you're set, or start from a recipe built exactly for it.
A juicy bacon cheeseburger wrapped in crisp lettuce instead of a bun — rich, filling, and genuinely low-carb. No sugar hiding in the sauce.
View recipe →A classic cheeseburger built safely gluten-free — the right bun, verified condiments, and the hidden gluten sources most people miss.
View recipe →A rich, satisfying burger with zero dairy — avocado and a garlicky dairy-free sauce replace the cheese without losing any of the creaminess.
View recipe →A fully compliant paleo and Whole30 burger — lettuce-wrapped, no dairy, no added sugar, and no grains, but every bit as satisfying.
View recipe →The handful of tools that make the biggest difference. As an affiliate, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
A flat, weighty press is the difference between a real lacy-edged smash burger and a sad steamed puck. Round, broad face for full patty contact.
Check price →Pulls a reading in 2–3 seconds so you can hit 160°F on ground beef every time without cutting into the patty and losing juices.
Check price →Holds screaming-hot heat for the deep, even crust that makes a steakhouse-style burger. Lasts a lifetime.
Check price →A big flat top cooks a dozen smash burgers at once with room for onions and buns. The backbone of burger night for a crowd.
Check price →A stiff, thin, bevelled edge slides under the crust and scrapes up every bit of the browned fond instead of tearing the patty.
Check price →For nights you do not want to measure. Salt-forward with garlic, onion, and pepper — exactly what a burger wants.
Check price →Long tongs, a wide spatula, and a basting brush so you are not fighting your own tools over a hot grill.
Check price →Mix a sauce in the bowl, decant into a squeeze bottle, and you get an even stripe on every bun instead of a spoon-blob. Also what keeps a topping bar tidy.
Check price →As an affiliate site, I Love Hamburger may earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This does not affect our recommendations.
Deep, original guides to help you cook better burgers.
The short answer: plan on about 1/3 pound (150g) of ground beef per adult for burgers. But appetite, patty size, kids, and whether you're serving sides all change the math. Here's the full breakdown — and a calculator that does it for you.
Read guide →The number on the ground beef package — 80/20, 85/15, 90/10 — is the ratio of lean meat to fat, and it matters more than almost anything else for how your burger turns out. For most burgers, 80/20 is the answer. Here's why, and when to choose something else.
Read guide →This is the deep version. If you want the six-step sequence at a glance, the Smash Burger Hub has it laid out start to finish — this guide is what sits underneath those steps: why the smash works, what the beef and the surface are actually doing, and the details that separate a lacy, crispy-edged patty from a grey one.
Read guide →Smash burgers are simple, but a few small mistakes are the difference between a crispy, lacy-edged masterpiece and a gray, dry hockey puck. Here are the seven errors people make most — and how to fix each one.
Read guide →Cheese is the most important burger topping, and the "best" one comes down to a trade-off between two things: how well it melts and how much flavor it brings. American wins on melt; sharp cheddar wins on flavor; several others own specific burgers. Here's how to pick, and how to get any of them to melt properly.
Read guide →Grilling adds smoke and char that no skillet can match — but it's also where burgers most often go wrong: dry, flare-up-charred, or falling through the grates. Here's how to grill a juicy, flavorful burger every time.
Read guide →