Grilling season is nye but it's still too chilly in many parts of the country to stand outside and flip burgers. No grill shouldn't mean no burgers, and I may have discovered a new go-to method for making cheeseburgers, turkey burgers and veggies burgers without firing up the Weber.
I'm no stranger to the trendy countertop oven. I make loads of things in the air fryer, but resisted making burgers in the oven or air fryer fearing I wouldn't be able to hit that coveted medium rare internal temp as I ca with cast-iron skillet or gas grill.
Making a bacon cheeseburger in an apartment-friendly air fryer is fast, clean and, as I found out recently, nets an equally juicy burger. Plus, you can easily get your air fryer burger medium rare via the superonvection heat that crisps the outside of food quickly without overcooking the inside.
If there's one drawback to cooking a cheeseburger in the air fryer it's that you can't get the same caramelization on the crust of the meat. But you can easily cook bacon and toast your bun without risking them falling through the grates of a grill.
Here's how to make a bacon cheeseburger in your air fryer at home.
How to make a cheeseburger in your air fryer
bacon and burger loaded into air fryer basket
Even a small air fryer can handle a full-sized burger patty and a few slices of bacon at once. Pamela Vachon/CNET
I consulted a variety of different sources for timings and temperatures, but the process is about what you'd expect and similar to that which you'd experience cooking a burger in any manner: 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 different approaches, both with a quarter pound of lean ground beef, seasoned simply with salt and pepper.
Air fryer cheeseburger recipe
Shaped a single patty of beef about three-quarters of an inch in thickness.
Place in a greased air fryer basket and cooked at 370 degrees F for 10 minutes, flipping at the halfway mark.
With about 2 minutes to go, add cheese to top of burger patty and place bun into air fryer basket to toast.
Remove all ingredients and build burger on bun with 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 six minutes. (Double your cheeseburger, double your fun.)
single patty cooked finished
Making a great burger in an air fryer takes almost no skill and requires very little cleanup afterward. Pamela Vachon/CNET
Air fryers require very little cleanup
a burger cooked to medium cut in half
You can cook a burger to that perfect medium or medium rare with an air fryer. Pamela Vachon/CNET
Well, that was easy. In both cases the patties cooked evenly, with an outcome that was medium in 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 managed to produce 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've Been Making Bacon Wrong. Here's the Best (and Cleanest) Way to Cook it
There are drawbacks to air fryer burgers
burger patties in air fryer
With an air fryer, you can't smash the patties down as easily as you can on a grill or griddle. Pamela Vachon/CNET
The air fryer isn't perfect when it comes to 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 circulation action of the air fryer, 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.
a tempting double patty cheeseburger sits next to an air fryer
Am I seeing double? Pamela Vachon/CNET
My second attempt where a slice was halved and layered for extra heft was more successful, even more so 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 absolutely would consider a cheese-stuffed burger, which should work nicely.