Looking for something new and delicious for breakfast or brunch? Try our breakfast burger recipe! A juicy burger with fried egg, bacon, sausage, and veggies is hearty and satisfying. It's sure to be everyone's new favorite way to start the day.
My husband Ken was the first one to create burgers for breakfast in our house. Over the years his recipe has evolved into a dish that's nothing short of brunch burger perfection!
Enjoy one for breakfast, brunch or any time of day. These loaded brunch burgers can be served with literally anything!
Other unique breakfast favorites are these breakfast taquitos and these easy breakfast egg cups. Serve them up with candied bacon, breakfast potatoes, or these amazing breakfast sides.
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Quick and easy to make with minimal prep time.
- A perfect meal for breakfast, lunchtime, and dinner.
- Many ways to customize your brunch burger.
- Kids love them because they get the chance to assemble their own sandwiches and they taste great.
- It is the perfect comfort food that will leave you feeling satisfied.
Ingredients
Breakfast burgers require just a few simple ingredients to make! Here's what you need:
- Bacon: Choose any variety of bacon you prefer. It even works with turkey bacon or you can leave it out.
- Potatoes: Use your favorite variety.
- Ground meat: You can use ground pork, ground beef, breakfast sausage, or a combination of any of these.
- Cheese: Burgers and cheese are a match made in heaven. Make sure to use shredded cheese so you can easily mix it into the burger meat.
- Aromatics: Onion and garlic are mixed into the patties to give them more flavor.
- Spices: Poultry seasoning, seasoned salt, black pepper or cayenne pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes are mixed into the patties.
- Maple syrup: Adds a hint of maple sweetness to the patties.
- Serving: We love serving a brunch burger on a toasted English muffin with a fried egg.
See the recipe card further down the page for the full list and exact quantities of each one.
Substitutions and Variations
Don't have the correct ingredients on hand? Or want to change something up? Here are some helpful tips for you to change this brunch burger.
- Ground Pork Sausage: Swap with ground chicken or turkey.
- Cheddar Cheese: You can substitute it with Swiss or Monterey Jack cheese.
- Taco-flavored: Swap the poultry seasoning for taco seasoning instead.
- Maple Syrup: Try with our spicy maple syrup or brown sugar.
- Spicy: Add some jalapeno powder, smoked jalapeno powder, or chipotle powder to the meat mixture for a bit of heat. You can also serve up our homemade hot sauce on the table as well.
- Breakfast Meatballs: Makes smaller burgers for breakfast meatballs or breakfast sliders.
How to Make Brunch Burgers
These breakfast burgers are worth the effort. You wait and see!! Here are the highlights of the main steps involved. Check the recipe card for the detailed instructions.
- Boil the potatoes in salted water until fork tender and cook your bacon in a skillet.
- Mash the drained potatoes and place the cooked bacon on a paper towel lined plate. Set both aside for a bit.
- Combine the ground meat, mashed potatoes, and shredded cheese in a large bowl. Then add the onion, bacon, garlic, egg, syrup, red pepper flakes, seasoned salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning.
- Mix everything together with your hands.
- Divide the meat mixture into eight equal portions. An ice cream scoop or cup measure is a great tool to use for making sure they are all about the same size.
- Shape and flatten the burgers until they are about three-quarters of an inch thick.
- Lay out the burgers on a prepared pan and then cook in the oven or in a skillet on top of the stove.
- Serve up your breakfast burger with your favorite toppings!
If you love recipes like this, you may also enjoy these hamburger pinwheels.
Storage
Refrigerator: Store the cooked burgers in an airtight container in the refrigerator separated by parchment paper for up to four days.
Freezer: Freeze burgers for up to three months. For best results, wrap the burgers separated with parchment paper in a freezer-safe container or bag.
Reheat: Microwave leftover burgers on high heat for 1-2 minutes or until heated through or in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or heated through. If frozen, thaw the burgers overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.
Make Ahead: You can mix up the burger mixture in advance if you want. Store it up to an hour before cooking and at room temperature or in the fridge up to a day in advance. If refrigerated allow to sit at room temperature for thirty minutes before shaping the burgers and cooking.
How to Serve a Fried Egg Burger
- On a Bun: Serve the burger in a toasted english muffin, sliced bread, a hamburger bun, your favorite sandwich roll, or wrapped in lettuce.
- Breakfast Burger Toppings: Top with tomato slices, fried egg, greens or lettuce, more bacon, onions, avocado, jalapeno slices, crispy fried onions, caramelized onions, mushrooms, or your favorite burger topping.
- Add a Sauce: Add a dollop of mustard, honey mustard, mayo, ketchup, barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, guacamole, or tomato salsa.
- On a Plate: Skip the bun and serve with fried egg, poached egg or sunny side up eggs (It's great for dipping your burger into the egg yolks -- trust me!). Serve more bacon, breakfast sausages, loaded breakfast potatoes or slow cooker breakfast potatoes, or a nice tossed green salad on the side.
- Add More Cheese: We put cheese on top of the burgers as soon as they come out of the oven so cheese melts right away. You can also melt the cheese under a broiler.
Tips
- Mix the burger meat together until just blended. You don't want to overmix and risk creating a dense burger.
- Shape the burgers into even sizes so they all cook in the same amount of time.
- Toast the buns. I always toast the buns first under the broiler. Once toasted, I add the cheese and continue toasting until the cheese melts. This seals your buns and prevents the wet toppings from making your bun soggy.
- To save time, if I know I will be making some brunch burgers I will boil some extra potatoes with dinner the night before.
- Timing matters! I boil the potatoes while cooking the chopped bacon. As long as I start the water for the potatoes boiling and get the potatoes cooking first, the timing works out just fine. Both the potatoes and bacon are finished at around the same time.
FAQ
The easiest way to combine all of the ingredients is by using your hands. A spoon will work too just make sure everything is evenly distributed and that there are no lumps in your mixture before forming your burgers.
The best way to determine if your burgers are cooked is to use a meat thermometer inserted into the meat. Insert it into the center of one of the patties and make sure that it reads at least 160 degrees F. You can also press down on the burgers lightly with a spatula and if they feel firm and are golden-brown, they should be cooked.
More Delicious Breakfast and Brunch Recipes
If these burgers aren't exactly what you are looking for then have a peek at some of our other brunch favorites below!
Video on How to Make
How could we not make a video for these Breakfast Burgers? Take a moment to watch. I am pretty sure you will be glad you did.
Ready to get cooking? Remember you can print the recipe if you like.
Easy Brunch Burger Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6-8 slices bacon chopped or diced, cooked until crisp
- 3 large potatoes roughly chopped, boiled until tender
- 1 teaspoon salt add to water the potatoes are boiled in
- 1 pound ground pork, sausage or beef
- 1 cup cheddar cheese shredded
- 1 white onion chopped
- 1-2 tablespoons garlic minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons poultry seasoning
- 1 teaspoon seasoned Salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper or cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or brown sugar
For Serving
- English muffin
- Eggs over easy
- Microgreens
- Tabasco
- Tomato slices
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a rimmed baking sheet with tinfoil and a rack lightly coated in cooking spray. Set aside.
- First you are going to need to cook your chopped bacon until crisp. Grab your skillet and over medium to medium high heat fry bacon until cooked. Place on a paper towel lined plate and set aside.
- Next, or while your bacon is cooking, boil your chopped potatoes in salted water until fork tender. Drain into a colander in your sink and return the potatoes to the pot and mash them up. Set aside.
Mix burger meat
- Now grab your biggest bowl and add your ground pork or ground sausage, mashed potatoes and shredded cheese. Using a spoon mix the ingredients together a bit. Then add onion, garlic, egg, syrup, red pepper flakes, seasoned salt, pepper and poultry seasoning. At this point we just use our hands and mix until everything inside the bowl is just blended together. Last add your bacon and make sure it is evenly distributed.
- Evenly divide the meat mixture into 8 portions, as equal as you can get them. That is the easiest way to do it. Remember you want the burgers to be the size of an english muffin and they will shrink a little as they cook. They will be around ¾ of an inch thick. Place your burgers on your prepared pan.
Bake
- Place the burgers in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the pan from the oven, flip the burgers and return them to the oven for another 30 minutes. Check to make sure the burgers have an internal temperature of 160 degrees. You can broil these burgers for a moment or two to brown them if you feel it is necessary.
Fry
- Grab your largest skillet. You will likely have to fry these burgers in batches. Over medium to medium high heat place a tablespoon or two of oil. Add burgers, one at a time, and do not let them touch while cooking or they will stick together. Usually about 4 or 5 minutes per side. Use your thermometer to be sure they have an internal temperature of 160 degrees. I wish I could be more exact but between temperature differences and burger sizes not being exact it is difficult to give you a more specific time!
Serve
- Now you can toast your english muffins, make your eggs (I love to dip these burgers in egg yolk!) and add whatever toppings you enjoy.
Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published August 2018. It has been updated with new images and content.
Heather
This recipe would be great to shape as a hotdog cook and freeze for an easy quick on the go kids meal.
Karin and Ken
That is a great idea! I love that you would change the shape. I wish I had done that when my son was small. He would have loved it! That never occurred to me after all of these years. THANK YOU for taking the time to comment. I am actually going to try that myself and instead of toast serve the burger on a hotdog kind of bun! That will be such a nice change. This is what I love most about my website. Together we can help each other to become better in the kitchen! Thank you again. Take care and all the best. Karin