Name: BEST Burgers in the Oven - With a TRICK!
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 27 min
Ingredients: 4 beef patties (I use 1 pound of ground beef to make 4 patties); salt (as desired - see blog post for tips); pepper (as desired - see blog post for tips); 4 slices yellow American cheese (if desired); 4 hamburger buns; aluminum foil

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4.97 from 672 votes

Burgers in the oven have become the favorite way to cook hamburgers by so many readers since first sharing this recipe years ago! This is the original recipe with the aluminum foil trick that makes these ooey-gooey cheeseburgers a favorite! No more messy stovetops from frying burgers.

Hamburgers in the oven - baked recipe with cheese

“Can I cook burgers in the oven?” – It’s asked often!

YES, and let me tell you… it may be your new favorite way to whip up this family favorite dinnertime go-to! (It has only become a favorite way to make these cheeseburger sliders that have become so popular too!)

Not only does baking the burgers in the oven make clean-up a breeze (no splattered grease popping all over the stovetop) but this recipe creates the juiciest burger, and has a trick that will keep you going back for more! (We even bake venison burgers in the oven!)

Featured Comment: I made these burgers today with the special “trick” and let me tell you. Hold on. Sorry I was drooling….. these came out OOEY GOOEY DELICIOUS!!!! – Jeannette Marie Young

It’s incredibly easy to make baked hamburgers… and the best part? With the trick I’ll show you, you can even make these a little in advance in case you’re serving a big crowd, (like for a burger bar) or aren’t exactly sure what time dinner will actually be served.

Jump to:

Ingredients
How to Cook Hamburgers in the Oven
How to Season Hamburgers
How Long to Cook Burgers in the Oven at 375 Degrees
The Trick for Melt-in-Your-Mouth Oven-Baked Burgers
Cooking Hamburgers in Advance
Toppings for Burgers
Sides to Go with Burgers
More Hamburger Recipes You’ll Love:
More Oven Recipes
Recipe
Comments

Ingredients

Here are the basic ingredients for baking hamburgers. The recipe card below includes more tips, seasonings, and toppings ideas.

ground beef – The ground beef that I use tends to be very lean. If you use a fatty ground beef there could be a lot of grease in the bottom of the baking dish. Some have found that they prefer placing the burger patties on a rack inside of the dish to help prevent the burgers from sitting in a lot of grease.
salt – See below where I go in to more detail on the type of salt I recommend.
pepper – See below where I go in to more detail on the type of black pepper I recommend.
sliced American cheese – Thick sliced cheese is my favorite and recommended.
hamburger buns – You can use your favorite burger buns but I love using sesame buns.

How to Cook Hamburgers in the Oven

As always, there’s a full, printable, recipe card at the bottom of this post, but I’d love to walk you through the recipe with photos and extra tips to help you make the best, baked hamburger recipe!

Preheat Oven:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, and spray non-stick cooking spray inside of a baking dish, large enough to hold 4 hamburger patties.

Note: When cooking, you can definitely do more at a time if you prefer! Just use a larger baking pan or dish — make sure to use one with raised sides so the juices don’t pour out — and the cooking time will stay the same!

4 Beef Hamburger Patties

Using 1 pound of ground beef, patty out 4 hamburger patties. (Tip: Thaw out another pound of ground beef to make this old-fashioned favorite, Salisbury steak!)

How to Season Hamburgers

In the BEST Cheeseburger recipe, you saw that I love to fry burgers in browned butter for flavoring and use salt and pepper to season.

However, when it comes to baking hamburgers, I prefer to only use salt and pepper.

Feel free to use what you have on hand, or your favorite salt and pepper, but I can’t help but recommend my favorites.

Fine Grain Himalayan Salt – When I started researching different salts for healthier options, my friend recommended this salt and I haven’t looked back. It is “saltier” so I don’t have to add as much when cooking, but it is also really tasty! I’m a big fan!
However, feel free to use my other favorite, kosher salt, or any type of sea salt/table salt.
Peppercorn Medley – Oh my favorite pepper in all the land! I love using this with the BEST oven baked steak recipe, and anything “beef” related. You’d be surprised at how much flavor this pepper has over regular black pepper. HOWEVER, feel free to use regular ground black pepper too! It’s tasty too!

Alternate Seasoning Options

I don’t know what it is exactly, but this seasoning rocks my world, and I love to put it on just about anything. Especially side dishes like my garlic roasted broccoli and the baked potato wedges.

So when I have some on hand, I love sprinkling this on my cheeseburgers too! Just be cautious of adding salt, because seasoning like this can have a lot of salt in it! This seasoning is similar to a seasoned salt but I’ve had so many readers also say that they love sprinkling their favorite meat seasonings on these burgers too.

French Fry Seasoning - a great spice for burgers

Season on Both Sides

Over the years, I’ve learned that I prefer when burgers are GENEROUSLY seasoned with salt and pepper.
(If I had to guess, I’d say I probably use a total of about 2 teaspoon of salt for the four burgers, and then I just make sure I can SEE black pepper all over my burgers.)

Seasoned hamburger patties with salt and pepper — I actually used regular black pepper for this photo, because I ran out of my favorite peppercorn medley earlier that day!

Just when you think it may be too much salt and pepper (because let’s face it… you can always add more, but you can’t really take it away) you can finally actually taste it.

So season as you desire, but if you find that your burgers didn’t have much flavor this time, add a little bit more next time.

When you’ve seasoned one side of the burgers, flip the seasoned side down in to the prepared baking dish and season the other side.

Flip the seasoned burgers over in to the baking dish and season the other side

How Long to Cook Burgers in the Oven at 375 Degrees

Bake, uncovered in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until an inserted thermometer reaches 160 degrees.

(For the trick that makes all of the difference when cooking burgers in the oven, scroll down! You won’t regret it!)

For Cheeseburgers

If you love cheese on your burgers, grab a slice of American cheese (or your favorite kind) and place one slice on each burger.

Place back in the oven for about one minute, or until the cheese has melted! (Unless you plan to do the “bun trick” below, and then you can just add the cheese and wait to melt it in the foil.)

The Trick for Melt-in-Your-Mouth Oven-Baked Burgers

When I started doing this for my burgers, I feel like I changed my family’s burger-lovin’ life.

Tear off 4 squares of aluminum foil (just large enough to wrap each individual burger).

Place the bottom portions of each bun on each sheet of foil, and build the burgers, WITHOUT the extra toppings. Just meat and cheese for now!

Build the cheeseburger and wrap in aluminum foil

Wrap up each burger, and place either in a different baking dish, a cookie sheet or even directly on the oven rack… and let heat in the oven for a 2-3 minutes.

Wrap cheeseburger in aluminum foil and place in oven to steam

This will allow the cheese and bun to steam/toast, to create the ooey-gooeyness that has become so hard to live without!

Cooking Hamburgers in Advance

If you’re cooking for a large crowd, or just want to make a batch early and keep warm until dinnertime, it’s easy!

Make the burgers like I’ve suggested, and keep the aluminum foil-wrapped burgers in the oven on warm. (Just don’t get the oven too hot, or your buns will get TOO toasty and become hard.) I do this for baking hot dogs in the oven too!

Toppings for Burgers

Feel free to top your burgers with your favorite toppings! Honestly, when they’re cooked like this, I love them plain, with just cheese! (Unless I have some of the french fry seasoning that I’ve shared with you, under the recipe.) Although, topping them like a Cowboy Burger is pretty tasty too!

But some of the standard favorite toppings are:

mustard
ketchup
onion
tomato
lettuce
pickles
mayo
bacon (you can cook bacon in the oven too!)
pineapples (Yes! They’re so good on a burger, and we love using them on Aloha burgers too!)

Sides to Go with Burgers

Looking for something to serve along with your hamburgers? Here are our favorites:

More Hamburger Recipes You’ll Love:

If you love hamburgers, then you’ll definitely want to see all of the other hamburger recipes that we have. Here are some of our favorites:

Or even if you’re looking for ways to use ground beef, we have suggestions for dinner recipes using ground beef!

More Oven Recipes

Did You Make This?
Snap a pic and hashtag it #Fantabulosity — I love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook.

Recipe

Burger baked in the oven, steamed in aluminum foil, and placed on white plate.

BEST Burgers in the Oven – With a TRICK!

Jessica Burgess

The ORIGINAL! Cooking burgers in the oven may leave you never wanting to make them any other way! This recipe with the "melt-in-your-mouth" trick that makes all the difference!

4.97 from 672 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 20

Optional Toasting 2

Total Time 27

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Servings 4 burgers

Calories 428 kcal

Video

Equipment

▢
8×8 baking dish
▢
aluminum foil – optional, for toasting

Ingredients

▢ 4 beef patties I use 1 pound of ground beef to make 4 patties
▢ salt as desired – see blog post for tips
▢ pepper as desired – see blog post for tips
▢ 4 slices yellow American cheese if desired
▢ 4 hamburger buns

Optional – For Toasting

▢ aluminum foil

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
Generously season one side of the burgers with salt and pepper.
4 beef patties, salt, pepper
Place burger patties in baking dish, spice side down.
Sprinkle more salt and pepper on each hamburger (or use a preferred seasoning) if you like!
Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes. (If thinner patties, this may not take as long, so it's best to keep an eye on them. When you no longer see "red" coming out of the top, or on the burgers, it could be time to pull them out of the oven.)
If desired, place one slice of cheese on each burger and bake an additional minute or until cheese has melted. (Unless you're doing the "bun trick" below and then you can wait to melt the cheese after you've built your burger to place in the aluminum foil.)
4 slices yellow American cheese

The TRICK for Ooey Gooey Cheese & a Toasted Bun

Place a burger patty on a bottom bun, add a slice of cheese, and top with top bun. Wrap each burger in aluminum foil. (Just enough to wrap the burger completely.)
4 hamburger buns, aluminum foil
Place back in oven for 2-3 minutes to allow the cheese to melt in and for the bun to get warm and toasty!
Serve and top with any toppings desired!

Notes

Why the Extra “Toasting” Step? Placing the burgers in aluminum foil and baking for a few minutes, allows the cheese to melt in and the bun to toast! This creates almost a steamy, soft… yet toasty bun that is to die for!

Making burgers for a large crowd? Make them in advance and wrap in aluminum foil like this and keep on warm until ready to serve!

Salt and Pepper: My favorite salt to use is fine grain Himalayan and my favorite pepper to use is Peppercorn Medley! But you can use table salt or ground black pepper too!

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.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Comments

4.97 from 672 votes (542 ratings without comment)

Burgers in the Oven

Ingredients