Y’all.
No joke, this is the best burger I’ve ever had, and it was insanely easy to make. It’s super crispy on the outside, while staying tender and moist inside. The secret? Bacon. Lots and lots of bacon. And when you top this bad boy with some slowly caramelized onions….. mouth heaven.
(Pictured garnished with a slice of chipotle cheddar cheese. It’s at Aldi. You’re welcome.)

Smoky Bacon Burgers with Sherry Caramelized Onions
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Prep Time: 10 minutes
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Cook Time: 75 minutes
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Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
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Yield: 8 burgers
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Category: Burgers, Beef, Pork
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Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 lb (16 oz/ 454 g) ground beef
- 1 lb (16 oz/ 454 g) bacon
- 1 tsp smoked sea salt (I used Celtic Applewood Smoked Salt)
- 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp sugar free liquid smoke
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/8 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp (1/2 fl oz/15 ml) avocado oil
- 1 tbsp (1/2 oz/ 15 g) salted butter
- 1 small onion (approx. 4 1/4 oz/120 g), thinly sliced
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
Instructions
- In a skillet, heat the avocado oil over medium until it’s hot and shimmers.
- Add onions to the skillet and stir to sweat for about 5 minutes.
- Turn the heat to low and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the bottoms from catching.
- At the 30 minute mark, add the butter and continue to cook over low heat, stirring occasionally to keep the bottom from sticking and burning, another 30 minutes. The onions will be deep, golden brown.
- In the last few minutes, add salt and sherry vinegar, and cook long enough for the vinegar liquid to cook off. Set onions aside to make burgers.
- Put the bacon in a food processor and run until it’s well-ground.
- Combine the ground up bacon, beef, smoked salt, pepper, liquid smoke, and garlic powder together and mix well by hand.
- Shape into 8 evenly-sized patties and let stand while your cooking surface is heating.
- Grill, pan fry, or broil, as desired. The outside of the burger will get very crispy, and the inside should come to a safe temperature of 160 degrees F on an instant read thermometer. Let rest five minutes before dividing the onions between the burgers to top.
- Serve warm, topped with the caramelized onions and any other burger fixings you like!
Notes
As shown with chipotle cheddar cheese.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 onion-topped burger
- Calories: 473.4
- Fat: 35.2 g
- Carbohydrates: 2.8 g
- Fiber: 0.2 g
- Protein: 34.3 g
Keywords: Caramelized onion, smoky, bacon burgers
this looks insane. cook onions in ‘shimmering’ heat for 30 minutes? i’ve never seen anything like this in my life.
not sure why i see no comments at all here. i figured 100 other people would have already asked if there are serious mistakes in printing this recipe to read this way.
I think you might have misread the instructions. No worries!
If you check out steps 2 and 3, you will see that you only sweat the onions for five minutes at the higher temperature (which is only medium) before turning it to a much lower heat in step three. Starting the onions off for the first few minutes at a slightly higher heat gets the juices flowing, but you will cook it for a full hour and almost all of that is over a very low heat, so that the natural sugars in the onion will caramelize.