I get it. There’s nothing quite like the sizzle of fatty beef over an open flame. But when that craving hits, and there’s no grill to be found — looking at you, apartment dwellers — or the weather outside is so frightful that the grill probably wouldn’t light even if you tried, you’ve got to find another way.
I recently turned to the air fryer to try my hand at cheeseburgers. I was skeptical that the powerful countertop oven would deliver that perfect medium-rare magic like a grill or cast-iron pan does.
As it turns out, I was wrong.
If your backyard’s missing a Weber or you’re simply missing a backyard, you can make juicy hamburgers, turkey patties and veggie stacks with very little effort and almost no cleanup after.
After air-frying a burger — bacon, bun and all — I am happy to report that bacon cheeseburgers made in an apartment-friendly air fryer come out equally juicy. As a bonus, you can toast your bun in the air fryer, melt cheese on top of the patty and sizzle bacon to finish things off.
Not convinced? Here’s how to make your own bacon cheeseburger in an air fryer.
How to make a cheeseburger in your air fryer
I consulted a variety of sources for timings and temperatures, but the process is about what you’d expect and similar to what you’d experience when cooking a burger any way: flipping the patty about halfway through for even results, with different timings depending on the size of your desired doneness.
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The air fryer works by circulating hot air in its contained chamber, so as a matter of interest, your air fryer burger will cook opposite to what you’d see on a sauté pan, with the exposed side of the burger cooking more quickly and becoming browner than the underside of the patty.
I tried two approaches, both with a quarter pound of lean ground beef, seasoned simply with salt and pepper.
Air fryer cheeseburger recipe
- Shape a single patty of beef about three-quarters of an inch in thickness.
- Place in a greased air fryer basket and cook at 370 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, flipping halfway.
- With about 2 minutes to go, add cheese to the top of the burger patty, then place the bun in the air fryer basket to toast.
- Remove all ingredients and build a burger on a bun with the toppings of your choice.
- Serve.
I also tried the same amount of meat, shaped into two thin, smash-style patties, for a total cooking time of about 6 minutes. (Double your cheeseburger, double your fun.)
Air fryers require very little cleanup
Well, that was easy. In both cases, the patties cooked evenly, resulting in medium doneness. (You can easily experiment with your model and ideal burger patty size to find the precise timings for your preferred degree of doneness.) The hot air circulation even produced a bit of caramelized crust on one side. Because I could, even with a small, single-household air fryer, I put in a couple of strips of bacon with the single burger patty, since crispy, spatter-free bacon is another excellent use for an air fryer — not to mention an exceptional burger topping.
Speaking of spatter-free, this is the single most compelling reason to employ the air fryer for burger prep. Your clothing, skin and stovetop all avoid the sizzling oil droplets that — safely contained within the air fryer drawer — like to escape the pan during regular skillet cooking. The smoky, greasy, meaty aroma, which is otherwise appealing at a burger dive, but not so much in a studio apartment, is also minimized. Cleanup was limited only to the nonstick, air fryer drawer.
Read more: I Found the Secret to Perfectly Crispy Bacon Every Time
There are drawbacks to air fryer burgers
The air fryer isn’t perfect for burgers, and the drawbacks, as I experienced, are twofold.
First, since you can’t really access the patty while it cooks, you’re unable to smash it down in such a way that it doesn’t shrink up significantly while cooking. Since an English muffin is the best burger containment method — I will not be considering opposing viewpoints at this time — this didn’t bother me so much, since the resulting patty fits the intended vessel perfectly. Expect shrinkage when considering the size of your patty before cooking.
Second, if you’re like me and believe that a burger without cheese isn’t worth eating, things get a little more complicated. Because of the air fryer’s air circulation, it’s hard to anchor cheese on top for a quick melt at the end of the process. My first attempt with a sliced single, an ideal burger cheese — and I am a cheese pro, so don’t come at me — flew off and unhelpfully adhered to the surface of the air fryer drawer.
My second attempt, where a slice was halved and layered for extra heft, was more successful, especially when I moved the patties to the back edge of the fryer basket, which gets less aggressive air circulation. This may just be a quirk of my model, but I’d be prepared to experiment. I wouldn’t even consider shredded cheese on top of a patty, but I’d consider a cheese-stuffed burger, which should work nicely.
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