Crack Burgers

Crack Burgers are dangerously delicious, loaded with bacon, cheddar cheese, and ranch seasoning mixed right into the beef! These juicy, flavor-packed burgers get their addictive name from the irresistible combo of savory bacon, tangy ranch, and melty cheese in every single bite.

Love More Burger Recipes? Try My Smashburger Quesadillas or this Chicken Alfredo Sloppy Joes next.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

They’re surprisingly easy to make, use ingredients you probably already have, and the patties stay incredibly juicy thanks to the sour cream. Plus, that simple three-ingredient sauce ties everything together perfectly.

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Ingredient List

For the Patties

• 1 lb ground beef
• 3 Tbsp sour cream
• 3 Tbsp ranch dressing powder
• ½ cup cooked, crumbled bacon
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• ¼ tsp coarse ground black pepper
• Neutral oil (for cooking)

For the Sauce & Assembly

• 3 Tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 Tbsp grainy mustard
• 1 Tbsp chili sauce (Western style)
• 3 burger buns
• Lettuce & tomato (for serving)

Why These Ingredients Work

Sour cream in a burger threw me for a loop the first time I saw it somewhere online. But what happens is it keeps everything moist even when you mess up slightly on timing. Ranch powder does all the flavor work – gets you that garlic and herb situation that just works with beef. Can’t explain it better than “it tastes really really good.” Mixing bacon into the meat versus putting it on top means every bite has smoky flavor instead of just where the bacon strip happens to land. Cheddar melts right into the beef while it’s cooking so you bite into random pockets of straight up melted cheese and it’s amazing. Keep the sauce super basic on purpose – just mayo, mustard, chili sauce – because the burger’s already doing so much it doesn’t need some seven-ingredient fancy sauce situation on top fighting for attention.

Essential Tools and Equipment

• Large mixing bowl
• Cast-iron skillet or griddle
• Sturdy metal spatula (no seriously you really need a good one)
• Small bowl for the sauce
• Whisk or fork

How To Make Crack Burgers

Step 1: Prepare the Burger Mixture

Grab your big bowl, throw in ground beef, sour cream, ranch powder, bacon, cheese, salt, pepper. Here’s where I see people mess up constantly – they mix it like they’re angry at it. Don’t do that. Use your hands, squish everything together gently just until you can’t see white sour cream streaks anymore then stop touching it. Gonna feel way softer and wetter than you’re used to with regular burger meat.

Step 2: Shape the Patties

Split it into three chunks. Don’t stress about perfect portions – eyeball it, who cares if one’s slightly bigger. Shape them into patties a little wider than your buns because these won’t shrink as much as regular burgers when they cook. Take your thumb, press a little dent right in the center of each one.

Step 3: Heat Your Cooking Surface

Get your cast-iron skillet or griddle going on medium-high, pour in some oil. Let it sit and heat up a couple minutes until it’s hot but not crazy smoking hot. These burgers are delicate because of all the stuff mixed in so wrong temperature and they’ll stick and fall apart when you try flipping them and then you’re standing there holding half a burger on your spatula feeling sad. Been there, not fun.

Step 4: Cook the Burgers

Put those patties in the pan gentle-like and then – seriously listen to me here – don’t touch them. Don’t poke with your spatula. Don’t press down. Don’t lift the edge to peek at the bottom. Just walk away for like four or five minutes until they’ve got a really good crust on the bottom. When it’s flip time, slide your spatula all the way underneath the whole patty before you actually flip because they’re soft and if you try flipping them halfway they’ll break apart and you’ll be mad. Cook other side another four or five minutes. All that cheese inside is melting and getting gooey. That’s when you know they’re done.

Step 5: Make the Signature Sauce

While burgers are sizzling away, mix up mayo, grainy mustard, chili sauce in a little bowl. Taste it – need more kick? More chili sauce. Want it tangier? Sometimes I throw in a splash of pickle juice and it’s so good I don’t even know why I don’t do it every single time.

Step 6: Toast and Assemble

Toast buns either right in the pan after you take the burgers out or under the broiler for a minute, just get them golden and crispy. Put a patty on each bottom bun, spread that sauce on thick don’t be stingy, pile on lettuce and tomato, top bun on. Grab like seventeen napkins because you’re definitely gonna need them. These are messy in the absolute best way.

You Must Know

These patties are soft. Way softer than normal burger patties. Be gentle handling them and whatever you do, please for the love of everything, do not press down on them with your spatula while they’re cooking. See people do this constantly at cookouts and it makes me want to cry because every time you press you’re literally squeezing out all the juice. You’ll end up with dry sad burgers and after all this effort that would be tragic. Also your bacon needs to be completely cooled before you mix it in or it’ll start melting the cheese before you even cook the burgers and it gets messy and weird and not in a good way.

Personal Secret: I always cook one tiny test patty first. Like meatball size maybe slightly bigger. Cook that up real quick, taste it to check if it needs more salt or ranch powder because obviously can’t taste raw meat. This has saved me so many times from making three whole burgers that end up bland and then just having to deal with it and eat bland burgers while being disappointed. Just make a little tester, takes two extra minutes, completely worth it every time.

Pro Tips & Cooking Hacks

• Run your hands under cold water before shaping the patties. Cold hands stop the cheese from getting melty and sticky on your fingers making a mess everywhere.
• Don’t press on the burgers while they cook! Already said this but saying it again because it’s that important and people keep doing it. You squeeze out moisture every single time.
• Take ground beef out of the fridge like fifteen or twenty minutes before you start. Room temperature meat is so much easier to mix and doesn’t stay all clumpy.
• Cast iron skillet if you have one. Way better crust, heat stays even. Any heavy skillet works but cast iron’s the absolute best for burgers.
• Don’t make them too thick. Learned this after making these probably fifty times – they’re so rich that about three-quarters inch thick is perfect. Any thicker and honestly it’s almost too much, like overwhelming.

Flavor Variations & Suggestions

Spicy Crack Burgers: Dice up jalapeños real small, throw them in the meat. Use pepper jack instead of cheddar. Mix sriracha into the sauce. My husband goes absolutely nuts for the spicy version.

BBQ Ranch Burgers: Use BBQ sauce instead of chili sauce in your sauce mix, throw a slice of smoked gouda on top of each burger right at the very end of cooking. Let it melt slightly. So good it’s almost unfair.

Loaded Crack Burgers: Top with fried onions, extra bacon strips, fried egg. Yeah it’s completely ridiculous over the top but also amazing when you’re really hungry or had a bad day.

Lighter Version: Use 93% lean ground beef, Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, reduced-fat cheese. Still gonna taste good just not quite as decadent.

Turkey Twist: Ground turkey works but add an extra tablespoon of sour cream because turkey’s so lean it needs extra moisture or it’ll be dry.

Make-Ahead Options

Shape raw patties ahead of time, stick them in the fridge on a plate with wax paper between each one so they don’t stick together. They’ll keep for a whole day like that no problem. Want to freeze them? Wrap each patty individually in plastic wrap real good, throw them all in a freezer bag and they’re good for three months easy. Just move them to the fridge the night before you want to cook them so they thaw out slowly.

Sauce keeps in the fridge three or four days in a little jar with a lid. Give it a stir before you use it because sometimes it separates sitting there.

Recipe Notes & Baker’s Tips

Your burger mixture’s gonna feel wet and loose compared to what you’re probably used to with regular hamburger meat. Completely normal, exactly what you want. The cheese melts right into the meat as it cooks and that’s what creates this texture that’s totally different from regular burgers.

If your patties are being super difficult to flip and you’re worried they’ll fall apart, stick the shaped ones in the freezer for ten minutes before cooking. Firms them up just enough to make everything way easier without actually freezing them solid.

Western-style chili sauce is not the same as Asian chili sauce – it’s tomato-based, kind of sweet. I use Heinemann’s brand. Can’t find it at your store? Just mix ketchup with a little hot sauce, close enough that nobody will notice the difference.

Serving Suggestions

These burgers are pretty rich so I usually don’t serve them with anything too heavy. Oven fries are my usual because they’re easy and I’m lazy. Or just a simple green salad with vinaigrette to cut through all the cheese and bacon. Coleslaw’s really good with these too – get that crunch and tang balancing everything out. Sweet potato fries are my actual favorite way to serve them because sweet and savory together is amazing but I’m too lazy to make sweet potato fries most nights so regular fries it is.

Toppings? Keep it simple honestly. These burgers already have so much flavor they don’t need a bunch of extra stuff piled on. I’ll add pickles sometimes because I love pickles. Or caramelized onions if I’m feeling ambitious and have extra twenty minutes. Avocado slices are really good but avocados are expensive and I constantly forget to buy them so that doesn’t happen much.

Perfect for regular Tuesday night when you need something satisfying everyone will actually eat without complaining, game day when you want to make something impressive, summer cookouts when you’re bored of the same old regular burgers. Just make sure you have a lot of napkins ready because these are gloriously messy.

How to Store Your Crack Burgers

Cooked Burgers: Put cooked patties in a container with a lid in the fridge, they’ll keep three days. Keep them away from the buns or everything gets soggy and gross and nobody wants that situation.

Reheating: Heat them back up in a skillet couple minutes each side. Can microwave them thirty or forty-five seconds if you’re rushed but skillet method keeps them way crispier and tastes better.

Freezing: Cooked patties freeze great up to two months. Wrap each one separately in aluminum foil, put them all in a freezer bag. Thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating or they won’t heat through evenly.

The Sauce: Keep it in the fridge in a jar or container with a lid up to five days. Sometimes it separates so just stir it up before using.

Allergy Information

Contains: Dairy (sour cream, cheese, mayo), eggs (in the mayo), gluten (buns)

Dairy-Free Option: Use dairy-free sour cream and cheese alternatives plus vegan mayo. Texture’s gonna be slightly different but still tastes pretty good!

Gluten-Free: Just use gluten-free buns and double-check your ranch powder and chili sauce don’t have sneaky hidden gluten because sometimes they do.

Egg-Free: Most ranch powders don’t have eggs but you’ll need egg-free mayo for the sauce.

Questions I Get Asked A Lot

Can I make these on the grill instead of a skillet?

You can but be super super careful because these are way softer than regular burger patties. Oil your grill really really well and use a good sturdy spatula you trust. What I do when I grill these is put them on aluminum foil with a bunch of holes poked in it for the first few minutes so they firm up and develop a crust, then move them right onto the grates. Works pretty well but honestly I prefer making them in a skillet because there’s way less drama and I don’t have to worry about them falling through the grates.

My patties fell apart while cooking – what did I do wrong?

Usually happens when you didn’t mix everything well enough so there’s like clumps of cheese and bacon instead of everything evenly distributed. Or your pan wasn’t hot enough when you put the burgers in so they stuck to the surface. Make sure all the ingredients are mixed through the meat evenly, let your pan get properly hot before you add the burgers. Also don’t try flipping them too early – give them at least four minutes to get a good crust before you even think about it.

Can I use pre-cooked bacon bits instead of cooking bacon myself?

Please please don’t do this. Those shelf-stable bacon bit things in the jar taste fake and weird in these burgers, they’ve got a strange texture too. If you’re super short on time just buy pre-cooked bacon from the deli section of your grocery store and crumble that up – way better than those jarred bits and you don’t have to cook bacon from scratch.

What’s the best way to prevent the cheese from oozing out while cooking?

Make sure your cheese is mixed in evenly through the meat and you don’t have a big clump all in one spot. Don’t make the patties too thin either. And again, don’t press down on them while they cook because that squeezes stuff out. Some cheese is gonna escape and ooze out a little and that’s totally fine – actually makes these crispy cheese edges around the burger that are delicious so don’t worry about it.

💬 Tried this recipe? Leave a comment and rating below! I’d love to hear how your Crack Burgers turned out and what you put on them!