Cowboy Burgers: When you think cowboy food, you think bbq and bacon and hearty food, and these cowboy burgers are no exception! Juicy beef patties are topped with cheese, bbq sauce, bacon, and onions rings to create a burger fit for a cowboy.
Are cowboy burgers good you ask? Let me tell you, these are high on our list of favorite burgers! They’re right up there with our viral hamburgers in the oven recipe (and that’s saying something) and our blue cheese stuffed burger recipe.
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
These are incredible burgers! Juicy burger patties are topped with barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese, crispy bacon, and crispy onion rings on top of that, and all sandwiched between soft hamburger buns. The combination of textures and flavors creates delicious burgers that will wow your taste buds and be a hit wherever you serve them!
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🧾 Ingredients
The ingredients for this cowboy burger recipe are pretty simple, but they come together to create some of the best burgers you’ll ever make.
- 1 ½ – 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 pound medium ground beef (or try ground venison for deer burgers!)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 3 slices cheddar cheese
- 3 sesame buns
- ½ cup barbecue sauce or more
- 6 slices bacon, cooked and cut in half
- 6 onion rings, cooked
See the printable recipe card farther down in this blog post for exact quantities and step-by-step instructions.
🤠 How to Make Cowboy Burgers
- Make 3 equal hamburger patties out of the ground beef and place back in the fridge to get cold (about 20 minutes).
- Take out and sprinkle burger patties with about 1 teaspoon salt.
- Heat up a skillet or deep sided pan, on medium heat and cook hamburger patties 6 minutes per side or to your preferred doneness (ensure you are cooking up to at least 160F, adhering to health and safety guidelines), then top with cheese and allow it to slightly melt.
- Layer your burger:
Bottom bun
BBQ sauce
Hamburger patty with cheese
Bacon slices
Onion rings
Top bun (with more BBQ sauce if desired)
📖 Substitutions & Variations
If you need to make some changes to this cowboy burger recipe, we’ve got you covered. Here are our suggestions…
- Bun – use gluten free buns instead of sesame buns to make this gluten free (be sure to double check your bbq sauce too if you are making this gluten free – often sauces can contain gluten)
- Vegetarian – the beef patty can be replaced with a plant-based patty and the bacon can be omitted or replaced with vegan bacon to make this vegetarian
- Want to get creative? Try adding some of the burger toppings listed below!
🥬 What Toppings do you Put on a Burger?
This cowboy burger is delicious with cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, and onion rings but you can definitely mix and match with your favorite burger toppings to create one that’s perfect for you.
A few toppings we like on our burgers include:
- sliced tomatoes
- caramelized onions
- lettuce
- fried egg (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, it’s pretty great)
- pickles
- pineapple rings (like on our Aloha Burger!)
- sauerkraut
- mushrooms (cooked or raw, both are great)
❄️ Storage
Once you put these bbq cowboy burgers all together, they wouldn’t store very well (the buns would become soggy from the bbq sauce). If you do need to make them ahead, store all of the ingredients separately and combine them when you are ready to eat them. They will stay good in the fridge for 2-3 days in airtight containers (although your onion rings will get a bit soggy if you store them).
You could make the burger patties ahead of time and freeze them. When cooking from frozen, make sure the internal temperature gets to at least 165° F.
💡 Expert tips and FAQs
A cowboy burger typically a beef patty topped with cheese, and then bbq sauce, bacon, and onion rings added on top.
Whenever we make hamburgers, we think about this one (and it’s a good question, if you ask me). The reason we call them hamburgers is because they originated in Hamburg, Germany (just like frankfurters originated in Frankfurt, Germany)!
Did you make this? I’d be so grateful if you left a “star” rating below to let me know what you thought! Then, the next time you need a quick and easy recipe, come back to Fantabulosity to browse all of my easy recipes!
🍔 Related Recipes
If you enjoyed this cowboy burger, you’re definitely going to want to try our cheeseburger sliders recipe, Juicy Lucy burgers, and our donut burgers! No boring burgers here – these are both super fun and delicious takes on the classic cheeseburger, just like the cowboy burger.
📖 Recipe
The Greatest Cowboy Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 ½ – 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 pound medium ground beef
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 3 slices cheddar cheese
- 3 sesame buns
- ½ cup barbecue sauce or more
- 6 slices bacon cooked and cut in half
- 6 onion rings cooked
Instructions
- Make 3 equal hamburger patties out of the ground beef and place back in the fridge to get cold (about 20 minutes).
- Take out and sprinkle burger patties with about 1 teaspoon salt.
- Heat up a skillet or deep sided pan, on medium heat and cook hamburger patties 6 minutes per side or to your preferred doneness (ensure you are cooking up to at least 160F, adhering to health and safety guidelines), then top with cheese and allow it to slightly melt.
- Layer your burger:Bottom bunBBQ sauceHamburger patty with cheeseBacon slicesOnion ringsTop bun (with more BBQ sauce if desired)
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Julia Lutsenko says
When you make something this delicious at home, who needs to go out?? So good!
Allyssa says
This is really easy to follow, loved this burger recipe! It’s really tasty and very flavorful! Will surely have this again! Highly recommended!
Katie says
This has lots of flavor and is easy to throw together. We love it!