Aussie Burger With The Lot
This loaded Australian burger is not for the faint of heart. But, if you're up for the challenge, you will be rewarded by the stellar combination of flavors that is an Aussie Burger. When you load a burger with egg, bacon, onion, pineapple, pickled beets, and more, you get a combo that is unlike anything you have ever tasted!
DISCLOSURE: We received samples of the Certified Angus Beef ® brand hamburger patties mentioned in this post. Honestly, we would have used Certified Angus Beef ® brand beef even if we hadn't been given the patties. We just love their beef that much. You can read about why below.
What Is A Traditional Australian Hamburger?
Turns out, Australians really like their burger toppings.
I mean REALLY.
Now, we love a good loaded burger.
Blue cheese, bacon, avocado, mushrooms, grilled onions. Give us the works!
But, when we saw the list of toppings for a traditional Australian hamburger with the works (also known as "the lot", we stopped dead in our tracks.
- Lettuce, tomato, and cheddar cheese. Sounds like a good standard so far.
- Onions, bacon, and a chili mayo sauce. Bring it on.
- Grilled pineapple. Sure, why not?
- A runny fried egg. We've seen it done before. We're still on board.
- Beets.... Sorry. You lost us.
Don't get me wrong, I do love beets, but on a hamburger, with pineapple, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a fried egg?
I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.
But, we refuse to be bested by any burger.
So, we vowed to give it a try, in its full glory, before we formed any opinions.
Turns out, wrapping our minds around the concept of flavor combinations in this Australian burger was the least of our worries.
As we piled our sturdy bun high with toppings, we started to wonder how we were going to wrap our mouths around the six-inch tower.
Starting With A Good Burger
Now, some people would argue that all these toppings just take away from the flavor of a good ol' hamburger patty.
I mean, why do you need quality beef with all those other flavors going on?
But, we'd argue just the opposite.
Good beef, a good hamburger patty, is what anchors all the other flavors in this hamburger together.
The robust meaty flavor of a good beef patty anchors the acid of the pickled beets and the sweetness of the pineapple.
A beef patty with quality beef has the perfect texture to complement the melting cheese and crisp lettuce.
And, the juiciness of a perfectly cooked hamburger patty is just what you want to mingle with the runny goodness of the fried egg.
We typically make our burgers from scratch using Certified Angus Beef ® brand beef, because we know that their beef is always going to be incredibly flavorful and juicy. Basically, the two most important things when it comes to a burger.
We typically stay away from frozen patties because they come out dry and seriously lacking in the flavor department. But, when we were sent these Prime Beef Patties from Certified Angus Beef ® brand, we were excited to see what a different Certified Angus Beef ® brand beef would make, even in a frozen patty.
And, after tasting them, we knew that they would be the perfect base for this glorious Aussie burger.
We give you instructions for making your own burger or using a pre-made burger in the recipe below. But, if you choose to use a pre-made, frozen burger patty, do your Aussie burger a favor and look for a Certified Angus Beef ® brand patty.
You won't be sorry.
Tasting An Aussie Burger With The Lot
So how does this monstrous, loaded burger taste?
One bite in, and we couldn't form any words but "wow." (And, that's not because our mouths were stuffed so full of this Aussie burger goodness.)
Each bite was the perfect combination of sweet and tangy, fresh and meaty, creamy and sharp flavors.
For the beets, we used pickled beets, and they added a bright sweetness and sharp acidity, like you would get from a sweet cucumber pickle. (We've had quite the debate in the comments below about the state of the beets. Have a read, and if you've experienced a true Aussie burger, leave us your thoughts!)
The flavors of the beets mesh perfectly with the pineapple and cut through the robust and rich flavors of the beef and bacon.
The cheddar cheese adds a sharp creaminess, while the egg and chili mayo add additional layers of creamy goodness.
The spice from the chili mayo is just enough to add a flavor undertone, but not enough to add a whole lot of heat.
And, let's not forget the saltiness and crunch of the bacon that, although almost lost in the sea of toppings, adds supporting flavor and a bit of texture to this sea of creamy goodness.
It's a burger you have to get your whole face into.
But, oh my goodness, it is worth it.
Aussie Burger With The Lot
Ingredients
For The Chili Mayo Sauce
- ¼ c ketchup
- ¼ c mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce (Sriracha or your favorite)
For The Burger
- 4 slices bacon
- 4 eggs
- 4 hamburger patties *
- 4 oz sharp cheddar cheese, sliced
- 1 sweet onion, sliced into thick rings **
- 4 pineapple rings, patted dry **
- ¾ c pickled beets, drained, sliced, and patted dry
- 1 tomato, sliced
- 4 lettuce leaves, washed and patted dry
- 4 hamburger buns
Instructions
- Preheat your grill to a medium heat.
- In a small bowl, mix together ketchup, mayonnaise, and hot sauce. Set aside.
- Fry your bacon in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until cooked to your preferred doneness. Remove the bacon from the skillet and place on a paper towel-lined plate.
- Crack the four eggs into the hot bacon grease and fry the eggs until the whites are cooked, but the yolks are still jiggly, 2-3 minutes. Remove the fried eggs from the pan.
- Place the burger patties on the preheated grill. Cook for 5-7 minutes on each side, until firm and cooked to your desired doneness. (Actual cooking time will depend on the thickness of the burgers and the heat of your grill. If using packaged burgers, refer to the package instructions.) Remove the burgers from the grill and let rest for 2-3 minutes, covered with aluminum foil to keep warm.
- Construct the burgers by layering lettuce, tomato, pineapple, beets, and onion on one half of the bun, followed by the burger patty. Continue, layering the cheese, bacon, and finally the fried egg. Top everything off with the top bun, slathered with the chili mayo.
- Un-hinge your jaw and get ready to enjoy this epic tower of a burger!
Notes
This is one of the recipes from the early days of Curious Cuisiniere. We've updated our pictures since we first shared it, but we've left some originals here, in case you've found us in the past and are looking for that old, familiar image.
Sarah founded Curious in 2010 as a way to save her recipe creations and share culinary experiences. Her love for cultural cuisines was instilled early by her French Canadian Grandmother. Her experience in the kitchen and in recipe development comes from over 10 years working in professional kitchens. She has traveled extensively and enjoys bringing the flavors of her travels back to create easy-to-make recipes.
You were misinformed. The beets on a traditional Australian burger are most definitely pickled and cut in larger diameter slices. While I’m at it I will also take exception with the addition of mayo. Good old ketchup or a BBQ sauce is what it takes.
The fuel for a thousand summer surfing odysseys.
Thanks for sharing Kim. It seems parts of the toppings on these burgers are pretty hotly debated.
@Sarah - Curious Cuisiniere, I was going to say the same. It's just that most Aussies don't realise they're pickled. It doesn't say it on the can. It just says "beetroot slices". Most people don't eat non-pickled beets.
Thanks for clarifying Russell.
Living in Switzerland for the least 14 years, the two foods I miss most from Australia are the Great Aussie Hamburger and the humble but amazing meat pie (many variants thereof). Clement largely nailed it with his comment but I can't agree with his assessment that Aussie burgers are made with smashed patties and shredded lettuce to keep the bulk down and facilitate squeezing them into human mouths.
Unless things have changed dramatically since I grew up in Sydney in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Aussie hamburgers are huge and almost unmanageable. Nothing is squashed or compressed and the lettuce leaves should be iceberg, whole and produce a satisfying crisp crunch when eaten.
Technically, the hamburger in this recipe isn't a "burger with the lot". It's actually one better! This burger was sold by milk bars (fast disappearing, now — on a recent trip to Sydney, I mentioned "milk bars" to a local woman in her early twenties and she had no idea what one was) on the Northern Beaches of Sydney as "hamburger with the lot plus pineapple". 🤣
Options to load the burger even further include avocado (now that you can smoosh to your heart's content!) and mushrooms, typically the small, sliced, tinned variety — drain them well and fry them with the onions.
Congratulations on an excellent, authentic recipe! Now you've got me salivating and even more excited about my next trip home, just a month and a half away!
Thank you! And than you for sharing!
Not sure what your other Aussie readers are on about - Australian jarred & canned beetroot is always pickled.
It doesn't 'say' that it's pickled, the label simply saying 'beetroot', but it is. It's packed with sugar, spices, water & acetic acid, otherwise known as spirit vinegar, or white vinegar. Making it a vinegar pickle.
Acidity-wise it'll usually be more similar to a sweet gherkin or bread & butter pickle than a dill pickle, still plenty tangy, but more sweet than sharp. Which might be why so many of my fellow Australians are confused. But don't worry, you did fine.
I'll say in my experience these burgers are usually done with smashed patties (down to around 1/4 inch or 0.5 cm), shredded iceberg lettuce, & all the layers being cut thin so the entire thing can fit inside a paper sandwich wrapper (and so the salad counter doesn't need to restock their gastronorms every 5 minutes) - but it varies, each place makes up their own rules - but thinner slices/patties & shredded lettuce makes the whole thing much more manageable, thinner onions grill quicker, and you can squash the whole thing down to be human-mouth-sized. The end result is more like combining a bacon smashed cheeseburger & a salad sandwich - built for a mid-20th century world a bit less well-off than the USA (at the time) where meat was expensive but people who grew up in the great depression & WW2 still want a meal that's affordable, filling & nutritious, hence the egg, the fruit, and the vegetables. Australian burger places (milk bars) were usually also salad & sandwich places with a deli counter (and milkshakes - different style to the US but that's another rabbit hole), burgers being a bit more of an extravagance - but the other toppings were initially mainly a value-for-money thing where eggs were cheap & salad was free. You'll see examples with thicker beef patties these days, but Australians have much more disposable income now.
On sauce, BBQ sauce for this purpose is usually sweet, tangy, not smoky or bitter. I'd put it somewhere between Ketchup & British HP Sauce (in fact you could probably just combine the two & you'll more-or-less be there) - basically a blended tomato, date, molasses, onion & vinegar chutney - though with the vinegar toned down. You'll get spices like clove, nutmeg, tamarind & maybe anise or coriander used - not enough to be overt, just give depth. But short version: any sweet non-smoky non-spicy BBQ sauce that has vinegar but is on the milder side will do fine. If a Kansas-style BBQ sauce that isn't smoked exists, I think it's along similar lines to that.
The tomato sauce used, extremely similar to Heinz ketchup, is a blended tomato chutney. You can use Heinz & you won't really be missing anything in a burger, but for other applications like on savoury pastries like meat pies, Australian tomato sauce is typically a little thicker, a little sweeter, and a little less tangy than Heinz. Adding a little more sugar & tomato paste might do the trick to align it but I can't say I'd personally bother.
Sauce is usually one or the other, though I've seen people ask for both. You can use whatever sauce you like really, but your experience will be different to most people who've had burgers like this which is usually just tomato and/or BBQ.
Thank you so much for sharing Clement!
Here's how you do the Aussie burger - beef Pattie, char grilled and when cooked if you like top with tasty cheese until it melts. Hamburger bun also char grilled on the inside only, my go to are the ones from Coles- no one has disagreed. Mixed salad leaves. Fry off onion and bacon. Sliced tomato. and Beetroot (not negotiable). Tomato sauce. You can add egg & char grilled pineapple if you like. Top buns with lettuce, tomato, beetroot, then meat patty and cheese and egg and top with bacon and onions. Top with sauce of choice and get VERY messy.
Delicious! Thanks for sharing!
Easy aussie burger recipe, looks good, tastes great.
Glad you enjoyed the burger!
*sacrilege
(Plus BBQ sauce ftw!)
Most often the aussie burger just has canned beetroot. Not heard of pickled beets being used and I'm an aussie.
However, I hated beetroot on the burger, seemed to take over all the flavours but not having beetroot was such a sacrilegeI was told to leave the country!
I now reside in Canada, and am now hungry. thanks! 🙂
Good to know. Here in the States canned beets typically are pickled, so that may be where some of the confusion lies. Thanks for clearing it up. (For what it's worth, pickled beets do add a nice flavor without the overpowering beet taste!)
@Sarah Ozimek, I am an Aussie, and no canned beets I can't enjoy a burger. Ours are not pickled, they have a very clean taste, in in my view add a freshness to a burger. I disagree beets took over the flavour - unless there was no bacon or onions.
Thanks for sharing!
@bronwyn, I'm sorry I'm an Australian and yes all of our tinned beetroot are automatically pickled we don't have unpickled beetroot
Definitely worth it! Looks and taste really good!
Glad you enjoyed it Kyle!
GRILL YOUR ONIONS. It is not an Aussie burger if you leave the onions raw.
Thanks for sharing Jeff!
I just polished off an Aussie burger with the lot at the California Diner and Grill In Mawson, Canberra, Australia. Maaaaaaate! No room for chips! The pickled beetroot just makes it perfect ? Don’t forget the Aussie-style flat white coffee - sublime ? Good work California Diner!
Sounds delicious!
One more thing, swap out the chilli mayo for an Australian BBQ sauce, typically Fountain or Heinz brand, and you then have the perfect burger recipe.
Also wholly agree with the lightly toasted bun thing, and don't melt the cheese over the pattie.
Thanks for your thoughts Matt. Could you describe Australian BBQ sauce? Is is sweet? Tomato-y? Molasses heavy? Etc. Thanks!
Typically an Aussie burger has 'Dead Horse' or Tomato Sauce (Oz slang), like Tomato Ketchup. Yes bun should be lightly toasted so it holds all the stuff inside together. Onion can either be red sliced raw or brown cooked. The cheese melting is more a modern thing.
Thanks for sharing!
Just had a fantastic Aussie burger in Tyson's Cafe in Vientiane Laos. They got it to perfection. They called it the thunder down-under. 10/10
What a find! I bet it was delicious!
Aussie burgers have beetroot - not pickled beets and also the bun has to be lightly toasted. American eateries that claim to have this never get it right
Hi Jane. Thanks for your note! Can you elaborate on how the beets are prepared in your experience? Are they simply boiled, rather than being pickled?
This might be a language issue - "beets" in Australia usually means leafy stuff, like silverbeet, but the pickles are always the root. Plus most Aussies never eat it any other way than pickled - when an Aussie talks about beetroot, they mean pickled unless specifically stated otherwise. So roasted beetroot, fried beetroot, raw beetroot salad, but just "beetroot" = pickled in vinegar.
Thanks Anwyn! This is really insightful. Separated by a common language!
There used to be an Aussie Deli here in town and that was the first time I had an Aussie burger. Now you have me craving one, Sarah! Thanks for participating in this. I completely lost track and didn't get a recipe done. But I'm still making the rounds and sharing.
Thanks for stopping by Cam! Someone should open an Aussie Deli in Wisconsin. I think it would be a hit!
Thank you so much for paticipating in this event! I have been liiving in Australia for almost 10 years now, but the first time I had one of these burgers, I was shocked!! hehehe But they do taste great! Beautifully presented too!
It is such a unique combination of flavors. You'd never guess they all work so well together. Thanks so much for putting this event together!