Once you get the concepts perfected for this simple style of burger, it’s easy to apply the approach to the cooking process for other burgers. That’s what we’re here to talk about today. But first, we need to learn a bit about the Oklahoma onion burger.
Note: this is a long blog post with hopefully a lot of helpful content about fried-onion cheeseburgers so I made sure to add some navigation if you want to jump around.
History of Oklahoma fried-onion burgers
Fried-onion Navigation
- Oklahoma fried-onion burger history (you are here)
- Soft potato buns
- Oklahoma fried-onion burger cooking process
- Tools for fried-onion burgers
- Process with minimal tools
- Oklahoma fried-onion burger photos and recipe
- Fried-onion turkey burger photos and recipe
- Double-fried-onion patty melt photos and recipe
The Oklahoma onion burger is one of America’s regional cheeseburger styles. The fried-onion burger was invented in El Reno Oklahoma in the early-1920s. A man named Ross Davis and his dad, Homer, created what eventually took on the slightly erroneous name of “the Depression burger” at their restaurant, The Hamburger Inn.
The Hamburger Inn is no longer around, but several nearby burger joints and diners have kept the fried-onion burger alive for more than 100 years. Historical recounts attribute the name “Depression burger” to this ground beef sandwich, but it was invented 7 years before the Depression during the Great Railroad Strike of 1922.
The original point of this burger was to use thinly sliced onions—which were and still are cheaper than meat—to increase the mass of ground beef patties to build a more substantial and less expensive sandwich. At the time, the amount of onion slices was nearly the same weight as the meat in each patty which meant the restaurant could charge less for each burger during times when money was scarce.
An Oklahoma onion burger is a style of burger that could easily have been lost to time but luckily for us, a guy named George Motz fell in love with them.
George Motz, burger historian and scholar
A lot of the credit for the emergence and Nationwide popularity that the Oklahoma onion burger is currently enjoying should be attributed to a guy named George Motz. Obviously, a huge amount of credit should go to the people in Oklahoma who have been making these burgers since their inception, but Motz brought awareness of the style outside of the state.
If you’ve never heard of him, George Motz is as close to a burger expert as you can get. He has published 5 books about burgers, helped film and produce 3 burger-focused TV shows, and he now owns a restaurant in New York City that specializes in different styles of burgers with the Oklahoma onion burger being a very popular menu option.
Motz’s restaurant, Hamburger America, goes through 200 pounds of onions per day, shaving them paper thin with a special undisclosed machine to use in their “George Motz’s Fried Onion Burger.“
This video is a bit longer than the YouTube short I also shared, but it has a good representation of how George makes his version of the fried-onion burger at, Hamburger America, in New York City.
Motz makes his fried-onion burgers just slightly different from how they do at Sid’s Diner in El Reno, Oklahoma which he claims is one of the “top three most important” burger places.
What exactly is a fried-onion burger?
A fried-onion burger is one of those sandwiches that is unaffected by time. They’re still made in much the same way they were 100+ years ago. The burger is cooked on a hot, flat griddle like you’ve likely seen in diners or breakfast-focused restaurants. The first side of the burger is pressed into the hot griddle right as the meat is placed there to make sure that as much of the meat as possible is fully in contact with the hot surface. In the case of the fried-onion burger, a large pile of paper-thin sliced onions is pressed into the beef when the burger is initially “smashed.” The patty is simply seasoned with either a simple seasoning salt or just salt and pepper and then when the edges of the patty and the onions touching the griddle start to turn brown, the burger is flipped over on top of the bed of onions and topped with cheese while the second side cooks and steams above the onions.
J. Kenji López-Alt has several good videos on how to make your own Oklahoma onion burger on YouTube. The one I have linked here is partnered with the New York Times and is very comprehensive if you prefer a video resource. I’ve also added a few links here with additional fried-onion-related materials you can read. Don’t worry, any fried-onion burger pop quiz that might be coming will be open book.
- The Oklahoma Onion Burger Is a National Treasure – Food & Wine
- The Humble Origins Of Oklahoma’s Onion Burger – TastingTable
- The “Depression Burger” of Route 66 – BBC
- Hamburger History: The Oklahoma Fried Onion Burger – Hamburger Britannia
Now that we know what an Oklahoma onion burger is, we should make some. Let’s get started with some homemade buns.
Soft potato buns
For these fried-onion burgers, I used my favorite burger bun recipe. The buns are soft on the inside but still sturdy enough to stand up to a juicy burger. If you’re interested, I’ve shared all of the sandwiches that I’ve written about that use these buns underneath the full recipe. There are quite a few at this point.
I would consider this to be a beginner baking recipe. You do need a scale though and it requires a couple of ingredients that you probably do not have in your pantry if you’ve never baked before.
The default recipe makes 6 buns which is typically just the right amount for my two-person household but this week I adjusted the recipe slightly to make two different batches.
Bun calculator
This particular potato bun recipe uses gram weight for all ingredients so I was able to add it to my bun calculator tool on this site. This means you can use the tool to scale the recipe up or down and make the number of buns that you need.
I made a batch of 4 and a batch of 8 during the testing of some of these onion burgers. The batch of 4 was for me when I was making beef cheeseburgers and the batch of 8 was for myself and my wife to share while I was testing fried-onion turkey burgers (spoiler for later).
Super soft potato buns v2
Here's my updated, soft and squishy bun recipe that's perfect for your next burger night. This updated version that uses potato flour and dry milk powder for a lighter bun with longer shelf life.
Get Recipe80/20 ground beef
If you’ve bought ground beef at the grocery store, you’ve likely seen some numbers in the form of a fraction either before or after the words “ground beef.” Typically it will say 90/10 or 80/20 or sometimes other fractions like 75/25. These numbers look like a fraction but they’re technically a ratio of two percentages that when added up will equal 100 and they stand for the amount of lean meat and the amount of fat in a particular batch of ground beef.
The first number is lean and the second number is fat. So a 90/10 package of ground beef will be almost entirely lean meat. In my experience, for burgers, 80/20 is a good ratio of lean to fatty meat.
When making a burger, you need a little bit of fat to balance out the leaner meat. The fat will bring moisture and juiciness to the final burger patty and 80/20 meat just works really well.
I use a scale to measure out my balls of meat to be formed into patties. For this particular burger, I was using a 4-ounce patty. I find it easy to weigh out the meat, but if you’re buying 1-pound portions from the grocery store, it’s pretty easy to eyeball and guess at splitting the meat into 4 equal-ish-sized pieces.
Oklahoma fried-onion burger cooking process
The Oklahoma fried-onion burger process is very similar to a smash burger that I have written about at least twice. The difference comes with the addition of a large pile of paper-thin sliced onions on top of and pressed into the ball of burger meat.
Smash burger content
Once the onions are smashed into the ground beef, they should be seasoned with salt/pepper or a simple seasoning salt and you will cook the beef until the edges of the meat and the onions that are touching the hot pan or griddle start to turn brown.
Once the patty and onions are flipped the meat will cook on a bed of onions and get steamed from the underside with oniony aroma. At this point, you can season the top part of the patty if desired and add any slices of cheese. Top everything with the top of the bun to let it steam while the bottom of the patty continues cooking. This softens the bun top and potentially flavors it with an oniony scent.
Add any condiments to the bottom part of the bun and then when the burger is finished cooking, close everything up.
Tools needed for Oklahoma fried-onion burgers
I use 3 or 4 specialized tools when Burger Night comes around. I already wrote about the scale that I use for weighing out patties. But if you don’t want to buy any extra tools or you want to adapt my fried-onion burger recipes to fit your own kitchen tools, you can also follow my “minimal tools” fried-onion burger process that I have shared down below. I didn’t write a whole section about it, but I also suggest owning a cast iron griddle for making burgers like this. A griddle is also great for breakfasts with bacon and pancakes and you can typically flip it over and use the backside as an indoor grill as well.
Japanese mandoline for onions
There are two main ingredients in a fried-onion burger, the meat and the onions. This means the onions are super important and they need to be sliced the correct way to work properly in the burger.
The onions are sliced paper thin so that they will break down in the cooking process at a fairly consistent rate. This means you shouldn’t have any super thick, undercooked pieces of onion that you will have to bite through when you eat the burger. They also will end up with a super soft texture because the thin slices will be broken down from the hot cooking process.
Consistency is key and you can get that with a sharp knife and some skill or you can go the easy way out and use a tool that’s dedicated to making super consistent sliver cuts.
Caution this next part gets SHARP
A mandoline isn’t just some sort of musical instrument, it’s also a kitchen tool that you can use to replicate virtually identical slices of a consistent thickness. You can accomplish almost everything you can do with a mandoline with just a regular sharp knife, but it’s much easier to get super thin slices with a mandoline.
The onions in this style of burger need to be thin and a good mandoline will get you there consistently.
Here’s a link to the Japanese mandoline slicer that I use. The other mandoline pictured above is a KitchenAid brand mandoline that seems to be old enough that it’s no longer being made. It works just fine it just won’t slice quite as thinly as the more basic Japanese-style one. If I were going to replace the KitchenAid one I would probably do it with this OXO Good Grips mandoline slicer.
Cut-resistant gloves (optional)
You can really hurt yourself with a mandoline. Be careful.
I’m not 100% sure that these gloves will protect you from slicing your pinky off while using a mandoline, but my household uses one when cutting with these super sharp devices and neither of us has suffered from a debilitating cut as of the publishing of this blog post.
Mandolines are a real danger and if you’re at all concerned, a no-cut/no-cry glove might be enough to save you or at least make you more comfortable while cutting thin slices of onion.
Here’s a link for no-cry cut-resistant gloves. They look a bit different than the ones in the photo above because this brand is what I’ve owned for years and I just tried a new brand to see if they are different or exactly the same and so far everything seems similar. But I’ve put a lot of slicing into those no-cry gloves and those are the ones I’ll recommend.
Once again, be careful with or without the gloves. You can’t swipe through TikTok very well if you slice off the tips of your fingers.
Smashing and scraping tools
I’ve got a dedicated LARGE metal spatula and smasher as my burger-making tools. These are not required if you’re making fried-onion burgers but they are very helpful to get you where you need to be.
The smasher I use is non-traditional. It’s an 11-inch finishing trowel that you can buy at Home Depot if you find the right aisle. It’s not meant to be a kitchen tool, but in my house, all I’ve ever used it for is smashing burgers. It’s stainless steel and as long as you don’t use it for burgers on the weekends and finishing bathrooms on the weekdays, it should work well. I sometimes use it to smash two patties at once and because it has a great handle, you can get a lot of overhead force into the smashing process. It’s a good tool and doesn’t cost a whole bunch either.
The metal spatula that I use all the time for burgers these days when cooking on my grill or cast iron is one that I bought earlier this year. It’s a great spatula about six inches deep and four inches wide which means it’s more than hefty enough to pick up almost any burger without the patty having to hang over the edge. Speaking of edges, this one has a good sharp-ish edge that will help you scrape under the patty to preserve the crispy crust of a smash burger.
Now that we know what tools we need, can we make good fried-onion burgers without these tools?
Oklahoma onion burger without a griddle or smasher?
Required tools
- Sharp knife
- 10+ inch skillet (with lid)
- Spatula
- Parchment or wax paper (optional)
Maybe you don’t want to buy extra tools. Or maybe you are at your friend’s house and they only have a cheap pan and a plastic spatula. You can still make a fried-onion burger as long as you’re patient with a sharp knife and are able to cut somewhat thin slices of onion.
I made one of my onion burgers this week with a non-stick pan and a plastic spatula and everything worked just fine. Here’s a quick rundown on how you’ll need to change things to cook on a regular pan or non-stick skillet. The first thing to be aware of is that we will be skipping the “smashing” process and instead will be forming our patties on parchment or wax paper that we will transfer to a hot pan. If you only have wax paper, be careful, and quickly transfer it to the pan because it melts at above 420 F (215 C).
If you want perfectly flat patties, you can use something like a plate or the bottom of a large pan to flatten the beef while shaping. The visible top part of the patty while you are shaping it will become the bottom when you flip the patty onto the hot pan so you want it to be pretty consistently flat.
Once the patty is flattened it’s time to move it to a hot skillet or pan. Since we’re working with a limited array of tools I will assume it’s a non-stick skillet and that should be just fine as long as you preheat the pan for about 5 minutes. This is just to make sure you’re not placing a patty on a lukewarm surface.
If your cheese slice doesn’t start to melt, cover the pan with a pan lid or a large cookie or sheet pan (if no lid is available). This will both help to melt the cheese but it will also help to steam any onions that might not be touching the hot surface. Once the cheese is melty, the burger should be done.
Steaming the bun under the lid will melt the cheese and it also helps to make sure any extra onions that might not be touching the hot surface will get an extra helping of heat that should help to soften their texture. This also helps to fully cook the rest of the patty which in theory is already fully cooked, but if you’re worried about that this should be helpful.
Now you should have a fried-onion burger that you made with as few tools as possible. Is it better or worse than the ones you make with a bunch of tools? The sear and crispy crust isn’t quite as good in a non-stick skillet as you can get on a cast iron or steel griddle but as far as flavor, it’s pretty much the same thing that just required more knife work to get thin slivers of onion and it is harder to make multiple burgers/patties in a skillet than on a griddle.
Condiments/Toppings for a fried-onion burger
I made the basic Oklahoma fried-onion burgers this week in a few different ways. I made one that was plain—just fried-onions, burger, and American cheese. I made one that added just yellow mustard, I made one that added just mayonnaise, and I also made one that added yellow mustard and dill pickles.
I am glad that I tried a plain version first to get the full experience of the flavors but I ended up enjoying the one with just mustard and pickles the best. But in the end, I think you should add whatever condiments or toppings that you prefer.
American cheese
I only used deli-style American cheese in the burgers that I made for this blog post. You can feel free to use whatever cheese you want though. Deli-style American cheese brings a lot of creaminess and meltiness to the final burger.
Dill pickles
Here’s my tried and true dill pickle recipe that I’ve been making since the beginning of this blog. It’s a very flavorful pickle that works great with a bunch of fried-onions.
Spicy MSG pickles
Spicy and dilly and savory pickles are great as a snack or in a sandwich. A great addition to any refrigerator. I based this recipe off of this tweet from Joshua Weissman and added extra spice.
Get RecipeSpecial sauce
I only used this one on the fried-onion patty melt that you’ll find down below. But since I’m trying to group all of the condiments in one spot I figured I’d list my special sauce recipe here.
This sauce is very similar to what you’d find at In-N-Out or my favorite small hot dog stand here in Chicago called Redhot Ranch as a special burger sauce. It’s also fairly similar in appearance and flavor as Thousand Island dressing. It comes together with mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard as the main components with pickle juice and finely diced-up pickles as a textural and acidic addition. Perfect addition to a burger or in this case to an onion-focused patty melt.
Special sandwich sauce
Great substitute for mayonnaise but way more flavorful. Perfect on a burger or even as dipping sauce for fries and onion rings.
Get RecipeOklahoma fried-onion burger photos and recipe
I started this blog post with the idea that I’d only be making this one Oklahoma-style fried-onion burger two or three times and this whole thing would be a quick blog post giving me lots of time to play video games for the rest of the week.
Then things changed. I ended up taking the concept and making a couple of extra fried-onion burger variants. The simple process of cooking the patty until well seared and the act of flipping the patty on top of a bed of onions until they are soft, sweet, and caramelized works well on many different styles of burger
Here are a bunch of photos of the simple, fried-onion burgers I made this week. They were very good.
Oklahoma fried-onion burger
Very thinly sliced onions were first introduced as a means of cost-saving in the early 1920s with this simple burger style. The onions bring a lot of sweet flavor and texture to the savory beef patty.
Get RecipeFried-onion turkey burger photos and recipe
Can you make a fried-onion burger with turkey? Yes. You can.
I have often been asked if you can make a smashburger with turkey and you definitely can. I think it works better with a fried-onion-style burger though because you sear and almost fully cook the turkey on the first side and then after the flip, the meat is stacked on top of a bed of onions and the second side gets steamed with the onions instead getting overcooked with a second sear.
I made the following fried-onion turkey burgers with 90/10 ground turkey, but I made some for my wife—a big turkey burger fan—at the same time with 99/1 and she said they were really good.
This is a good turkey cheeseburger. It’s entirely different from a burger with a beef patty, but the onions have texture and sweetness that bring extra flavor and excitement to the final burger. It’s my wife’s favorite way to make burgers these days and who am I to deny that?
Fried onion turkey burger
Adding thinly sliced and seared onions is a fantastic way to introduce sweetness and texture to this simply constructed turkey burger.
Get RecipeFried-onion burger patty melt photos and recipe
The basic premise of a patty melt is a cheeseburger with caramelized onions inside of slices of toasted bread. So it only makes sense that cooking up a fried-onion burger is a stepping stone to making a decent facsimile of a patty melt.
To get started, I made a loaf of square-ish white bread for these patty melts. This was my potato bread loaf recipe that I baked before it rose fully above the top of the pan. My goal was not to have a super fluffy slice of white bread. My goal was to have a small 4 x 4-inch slice that was just a little bit dense so that it would stand up to a burger and each slice would be around the size of a smashed patty.
This isn’t a traditional patty melt sandwiched between rye bread. But it’s a really good way to make a simple patty melt-ish burger and it’s a great bun-less application for the fried-onion burger technique. I made two of these patty melts, one with a single patty and one with a double patty. The double only had 0.5 ounces of extra meat but I ended up liking it more because it had double the patty sear and double the fried-onions. The balance was better than the single patty.
Double fried-onion burger patty melt
This double cheeseburger starts with the base of a fried-onion burger and adds a sweet and tangy sauce and sandwiches everything between slices of buttery toast for a flavorful and exciting patty melt.
Ingredients:
Special sandwich sauce- 1⁄4 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon dill pickle juice
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped dill pickles (optional)
- 1⁄8 teaspoon cayenne powder (optional)
- 1⁄2 Sweet onion, very thinly sliced
- 2 2.5 to 3 ounce balls of ground beef (80/20 is best)
- pinch of salt and black pepper
- 2 deli-style American cheese slices
- 2 to 4 teaspoons butter
- 2 slices of Texas toast or small white bread
- 2 beef, onion and cheese patties (from above)
- 2 to 3 tablespoons special sauce (from above)
- pickles (optional)
Suggested Equipment
- Mandoline slicer: Japanese vegetable slicer
- Kitchen scale: Escali digital food scale
- Patty smasher: 11-inch finishing trowel
- Sharp-edged metal spatula: Skyflame Griddle Spatula
- Cast Iron Griddle: Lodge brand cast-iron griddle
- Infrared thermometer: Etekcity Temperature Gun
Directions:
Special sandwich sauce: combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
Add very finely diced pickles if you want a little texture and/or add cayenne powder if you want spice/heat in your sauce.
Onion slicing: using a Japanese or other type of mandoline slicer, slice 1/4 of an onion into very thin slices. You want the slices to be almost paper-thin.
Cheeseburger patty: weigh your ground beef into two 2.5 to 3-ounce portions and then shape them into balls. If you do not own a scale, you should be able to get six 2.5-ounce-ish balls out of one pound of ground beef.
Preheat a griddle or pan to at least 400 F (205 C) for around 5 to 10 minutes.
Toasting the bread slices: Add a bit of butter to both slices of bread and toast them on the hot griddle for about 1 minute. Add butter to the second side of each piece of bread—flip and cook for another 1 minute. Continue flipping and cooking the toast until both sides are golden brown. Remove the toast to a cooling rack to rest while you cook the burgers.
Burger cooking: add the beef balls to the hot surface, top each ball with half of the paper-thin slices of onion, and smash everything down as flat as you can on the griddle or pan. You're going to want to use a lot of pressure and smash hard. The goal here is to get as much surface area of the meat to touch the hot surface as possible. If you have a flat top or a griddle, you might want to use some sort of very heavy spatula or even a clean finishing trowel from your local hardware store.
As soon as you've finished smashing, season the top of the onions with a pinch of salt and black pepper. You will season again when you flip, but this is when you should do most of the seasoning.
Cook for 2 minutes on this first side or until the very edges of the onions that are touching the pan and the patties start to turn brown.
Use a sharp spatula and scrape under each patty to flip. The goal here is to make sure you don't lose any of the crispy brown bits you worked hard to build up with the smashing process.
Once flipped the patty will be resting on top of a bed of onions, season the top of the beef with a small pinch of salt and pepper and add one slice of American cheese on top of each patty.
Cook the patties on top of the onions for 3 to 4 minutes or until the onions under the patty are browning well. After 3 to 4 minutes, using a spatula, scrape up and lift one patty off of the griddle or pan and stack it on the other cheese-topped patty. Carefully remove both patties to a plate to prepare the patty melt construction.
Burger construction:
Spread some special sandwich sauce on the bottom slice of bread and top with the double fried-onion patties. Add pickles (if desired) and spread a bit more special sauce on the second slice of bread before closing the patty melt. Serve and enjoy.
Check back next week
Next week we’ll be venturing overseas for a European-y sausage-y sandwich. Maybe I’ll even whip up a super savory sauce with some Port wine in it?
