The Biggest Burger in the World

We all know about the big burgers from the world’s most popular fast-food joints, yet the world’s largest hamburger is a whopper compared to these well known eats! The colossal culinary creations on this list are simply bun-believable! So who made the biggest burger ever? Can you really buy a ten thousand dollar burger in Michigan and just how massive are the world’s biggest burgers? Feast your eyes on some of the biggest, badass burgers ever made.

Like the genesis of many foods, the origin of the hamburger is mired in controversy. The ancient Romans ate a dish called isicia omentata, a baked beef patty with peppercorns, pine kernels and wine, but was this ancient dish really a burger? In fact the true origin of the burger as we recognise it today may be lost to history.

In 1758, English cookery writer Hannah Glasse wrote a recipe for ‘Hamburgh sausages’ served on toasted bread. A century later in Hamburg, Rundstück Warm was – and remains – a meat patty with toppings including beetroot, pickles or tomato slices between two round buns. Were these the precursors to todays’ burgers?

There are of course lots of claims and tales. What we do know more broadly is that hamburger-style meat was on restaurant menus in the late 1880s, as was bread and sandwiches. As to the invention of the hamburger? One of the most famous options is of a customer at Louis’ Lunch in Connecticut in 1900 who asked for something he could eat on the go. The chef fried up some steak trimmings and sandwiched them between two pieces of toast. Another popular option as to the origin of the humble hamburger is that of Charlie Nagreen, who is said to have sold flattened meatballs between two slices of bread at a county fair in 1885. While some claims are more broadly accepted than others, the debate rages on.

Whatever the truth as to the original hamburger, over the years the burger grew in popularity until it became a true icon of the culinary landscape and one of the most popular foods on the planet. There are tens of billions of burgers eaten every year around the world.

But when it comes to sheer scale, some burgers are special. And by special, we mean massive. Here are the world’s biggest burgers.

Irish food producer Finnebrogue Artisan made one of the world’s biggest burgers in January 2022 using their Naked Evolution Burger recipe. The colossal vegan burger weighed 162.5 kg and was the equivalent of 1,274 of their regular vegan burgers.

The toppings included 10 kg of tomatoes, 4.5 kg of lettuce, 7 kg of vegan cheese, 2 kg of onions, 5 kg of gherkins, 5 kg of vegan bacon and 5 kg of burger sauce. The burger took nine hours to cook and the vegan bun was provided by a local bakery.

As well as pizza, seafood, steak and chicken, the menu at Mallie’s Sports Bar and Grill in Detroit includes one of the world’s biggest burgers, weighing in at a colossal 816.4 kg. It’s believed to be the largest commercially available burger in the world, though it doesn’t come cheap. It’s priced at $10,000 – over £8,200 – and you need to give them three days’ notice if you want one.

It comes with 140 kg of the standard burger toppings – onions, pickles, lettuce and cheese – and the bun alone weighs 113 kg. The oven is a converted shipping container and if you want it to go, you better take a forklift and a flatbed truck!

Although it’s not quite the largest burger in the world, the former holder of the title of world’s largest hamburger was made in 2012 at the Black Bear Casino Resort in Minnesota. It weighed 913.5 kg – around three times the weight of an actual black bear – with a diameter of over three metres, and was cooked in a giant outdoor oven powered by blowtorches.

A crane was commandeered to flip the behemoth burger and the toppings included 27 kg of bacon, 23 kg each of lettuce and sliced onions and 18 kg each of pickles and American cheese. The beef took four hours to cook and the bun took seven hours to bake.

For one of the biggest burgers ever, we have to go back in time to 1982 and the very small town of Rutland in North Dakota. The 2020 census registered a population of just 163 people and it is one square kilometre in size. It may be a tiny town but it’s famous amongst burger aficionados for making, at the time, the biggest burger in the world.

The locals wanted to give their town some much needed recognition so they built a five-metre diameter frying pan and shipped in huge amounts of meat in refrigerated trucks. The cooking station was set up in a local field and the net result was a 1,629 kg burger.
Around 8,000 people came from miles around for what was billed as the ‘Grand Daddy of All Celebrations’ and apparently the entire burger was eaten! Today, the grill they used to cook the burger is signwritten with details of the phenomenal feat and proudly displayed in town.

German friends Wolfgang Leeb, Tom Reicheneder, Rudi Dietl, Josef Zellner, Hans Maurer and Christian Dischinger created the world’s largest hamburger in July 2017 in the Bavarian town of Pilsting.

It weighed 1,164.2 kg – approximately the same weight as a Smart car – and was assembled by hundreds of hungry helpers. The three huge meat patties were topped with the usual fixings, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and burger sauce.

So there we have it. The world’s biggest burgers. Bon appetit!