Meatloaf Burger Patties make a perfect single serving of meatloaf or serve as a juicy, flavorful hamburger. It's easy to cook these meatloaf patties in the oven, on the grill, or fried on the stovetop.
🐄Ingredients
Ground Meat—lower-fat ground beef, turkey, or chicken
Milk
Eggs
Onion
Panko bread crumbs
Pantry ingredients—ketchup, seasoning salt, black pepper
Jump To:
- 🐄Ingredients
- 👨🍳How to Cook Meatloaf Burger Patties in the Oven
- 🥣Options and Tips
- Other meatloaf and burger recipes
- 🔥Stovetop and Grill Meatloaf Patties
- ↕️How to make this a "for two" or "family size" recipe
- 🍴How to Serve Meatloaf Burger Patties
- How to store leftover meatloaf burgers?
- Food Safety
- ❓FAQs
- 📖 Recipe
Featured Comment from Theresa:
"I made these about four nights ago and am already doing it again tonight. I love them and everyone else likes them too. Thank you!"
One of my wife's favorite meals is a leftover meatloaf sandwich. It is the reason we make very large meatloaves— for the leftovers. These meatloaf hamburger patties go straight to the sandwich or may be served as a single serving meatloaf.
Baking the meatloaf patties in the oven is preferred since they are tender and many fall apart when flipped, but with care, you can fry them on the stovetop or the grill.
👨🍳How to Cook Meatloaf Burger Patties in the Oven
Preheat the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
Dice 1 medium or ½ large onion.
Mix 2 pounds lower-fat burger, 1 cup Panko bread crumbs, ½ cup milk, ½ cup ketchup, 1 tablespoon seasoning salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, two eggs, and the diced onion.
Divide into six portions and form into 4-inch burgers—dimple the center of the burgers about ¼ inch to prevent puffing during cooking.
Place on a large rimmed tray. A non-stick tray is preferred, but if you don't have that, cover the tray with a sheet of parchment paper.
Cover with a nice coat of ketchup.
Bake until an internal temperature of 160°— about 20 to 25 minutes.
Use it as a sandwich or as a single-serving comfort food dinner.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
🥣Options and Tips
- These meatloaf patties are best cooked in the oven since they are tender and may fall apart with flipping on the grill or stovetop. Also, oven baking allows you to add the topping during cooking for increased flavor.
- I use ground beef, but ground turkey or chicken works well but will have a slightly different taste. Lower-fat ground meat will still be moist due to the milk and breadcrumbs.
- Lower-fat ground meat is preferred if baked or fried for this recipe since the fat has nowhere to drain. There is less fat drainage for the burgers to set in, but it is less important if grilled.
- A simple ketchup topping is fine, but you may add some brown sugar or Worcestershire sauce if you like—or use BBQ sauce.
Other meatloaf and burger recipes
Don't miss these other meatloaf and burger recipes, like Old Fashioned Meatloaf, Paula Deen Inspired Basic Meatloaf, Grilled Hamburgers, Juicy Lucy Burgers, and Ground Chicken Burgers.
🔥Stovetop and Grill Meatloaf Patties
To Fry on the stovetop: Using a large non-stick skillet like cast iron, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat until hot. Add the patties and flip in about 5 minutes when the bottom is darker brown. Add ketchup to the top and fry for about 5 more minutes until 165° internal temperature.
To Grill: Preheat the grill to high—clean and oil the grates. Grill for about 5 minutes, flip, and coat the top with ketchup. Grill for about 5 more minutes until 165° internal temperature.
↕️How to make this a "for two" or "family size" recipe
This is an easy recipe to adjust. The full recipe makes 6 patties of ⅓ pound.
- Use the recipe card and adjust the number of servings you want.
- Use the amount of ingredients in the ingredient list, not the instructions—those do not adjust.
- If the adjusted recipe calls for a fraction of an egg, round up the number. For example, 1 ½ becomes 2 whole eggs.
- Cook for the same amount of time and at the same final temperature.
🍴How to Serve Meatloaf Burger Patties
To serve on burger buns, top with a slice of cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, mustard, or pickles. Serve with side dishes like Baked French Fries or Microwave Corn on the Cob.
Serve as a mini meatloaf with a hot vegetable like Green Beans with Almonds, Roasted Asparagus, or Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower. Add a nice Dinner Roll and potatoes like Oven Roasted Baby Potatoes or Parmesan Baked Potatoes.
How to store leftover meatloaf burgers?
Meatloaf is good refrigerated for 4 days if sealed well or frozen for 4 months if sealed airtight. Reheat in the microwave, an air fryer, oven, or skillet.
Food Safety
Ground beef must be cooked to 160° for safety. Poultry, like ground chicken or turkey, must reach 165° for safety.
Wash hands well before touching ground meat. After touching ground meat, any surfaces and your hands must be toughly washed.
❓FAQs
Be sure to clean and oil the grill grates. Add a light spray of PAM cooking spray on both sides of the patties will help prevent sticking.
The egg works as a binder, and having too much is always better than not enough. 1 egg per pound or part of a pound of meat is a good rule.
Too much liquid, not mixing enough, and not packing together enough are other possible issues. It is usually recommended not to overmix meatloaf since it will be denser. But here, a little overmix will help firm them up.
Meatloaf is a mixture of ground meats with breadcrumbs, eggs, seasoning, and more. Usually formed into a loaf and baked, but in this recipe, it is formed into patties for individual servings or burgers.
Hamburgers are ground beef formed into a patty and cooked on a grill or frying pan.
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
Have you tried this recipe, or have a question? Join the community discussion in the comments.
📖 Recipe
Meatloaf Burger Patties
Ingredients
- 2 pounds lower fat ground meat - beef, turkey, or chicken
- 1 cup bread crumbs
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon seasoning salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 2 eggs
- 1 onion - medium or ½ large diced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
- Dice 1 medium or ½ large onion.
- Mix 2 pounds lower-fat burger, 1 cup bread crumbs, ½ cup milk, ½ cup ketchup, 1 tablespoon seasoning salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, two eggs, and the diced onion.
- Divide into six portions and form into 4-inch burgers—dimple the center of the burgers about ¼ inch to prevent puffing during cooking.
- Place on a large rimmed tray. A non-stick tray is preferred, but if you don't have that, cover the tray with a sheet of parchment paper.
- Cover with a nice coat of ketchup.
- Bake until an internal temperature of 160°— about 20 to 25 minutes.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- It's an easy recipe to cut in half.
- A lower-fat burger is preferred for this recipe—less fat drainage for the burgers to set in. Ground turkey or chicken will be good here, also.
- These are about ⅓ pound each. You could make them smaller if you want.
- Good quality ketchup is required for this to be good.
- This would serve very nicely as an individual serving of meatloaf.
- Good refrigerated for 4 days and frozen for 3 months.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Editor's Note: Originally Published August 9, 2015. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
OldCook
Just made these tonight and already had one. Really good! I got 7 burgers out of 2 lbs (1/3 lb burgers each). Nice and juicy and tasty. When I make a regular meatloaf I use pretty much the same recipe except I add chopped green olives. Don't know why that's good but it is. lol. Will add the chopped olives next time maybe, but first time out I always follow a recipe exactly since recipes are basically little science experiments and changing one thing can ruin it. When I add the chopped olives, I will leave out as much ketchup due to moisture content. Thanks Dr. Dan.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Welcome to the blog.
I think of recipes like organic chemistry lab but with no explosions. There is a long story there but we will skip it.
Your olives should be fine.
Thanks for the note and rating.
Dan
Wendy Geoghan
A new favorite!
My husband was skeptical while I was making these, but after one bite he was sold!
I don’t think I’ll make meatloaf the old way ever again.
I cut the recipe in half and got four patties. I used 85% ground beef.
I added some brown sugar and some Worcestershire sauce to the topping.
Baked in the oven on cookie sheet with parchment paper.
They were very good.
Thanks for the recipe.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Wendy,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for the note. I do love this recipe since I love meatloaf and always over eat if I have big servings.
Dan
Carla
It's a keeper. Dope. (slang for excellent, just in case you don't know) :)
Ca
Hello, thank you for the excellent recipe. I halved the recipe and still had 4 good sized burgers. Baked in oven. They take half the time of a meatloaf. The flavor is just fine. Adding onion soup mix really would change the recipe and not be yours plus add a lot more salt (that we I don’t need). The only thing I did differently was to add some small diced sharp cheddar cheese. Delicious dinner with baked potatoes, home grown green beans, and Farmers Market sautéed apples. Thanks, again.
Lacey
This was good but for my family and I, we like flavor!!! I 100% recommend french onion soup mix for any kind of burger or meatloaf!!! It just adds so much great flavor to the meat! My kids absolutely love my meatloaf and burgers. FYI..my kids are the most picky eaters ever!! I just wanted to tell you how I make my meatloaf burgers' and meatloaf & burgers.
Rob
Hi I'm not a good cook by any means but had a dream a few days ago about hamburgers and today thought about meatloaf hamburgers. Searched the web and found your recipe which looked simple and delicious. Well, 8 of them are now baking in the oven and the kitchen smells like grandmas. I am pacing back and forth, my mouth watering. There is NO WAY that these are going to taste bad! Thanks for the great recipe. I am a new fan. PS.. Having green beans and mashed potatoes with some brown gravy with them. How could I go wrong with that combo?!!
Theresa
I made these about four nights ago and am already doing it again tonight. I love them and everyone else likes them too. Thank you!
Katy
Have these baking in the oven right now with a few tweaks. I do a mix of ground beef and pork and two enveloped of onion soup mix for seaoning. We also like a green pepper chopped up in ours.
Jenny
Hi,
Back again...Loved this recipe.
I am curious what is the ketchup that you like? You mentioned to use a good ketchup.
My tweaks on my first time making the recipe. I used 2 lbs. all ground turkey, it made a lot. My patties were big so I cooked an extra 5 mins, then I turned the broiler on and browned the tops. The ketchup is really good this way and crisped up the turkey a little. Still very moist, looking forward to eating leftovers tonight!
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Jenny,
First, the ketchup. I like Hunt's or Heinz. I buy the original versions for the full original taste.
About ovens and browning. Each oven cooks and browns a bit differently. I have two. One preheats much faster so I tend to use it but the other browns much nicer. So if I'm doing blog pictures, I use the second one. Never be afraid to use a touch of broiler is needed. It is much better than overcooking and drying out something.
The 1/3 pound burgers are in that ok for single-serving meal but still an ok burger. If you know you are serving one way or the other, feel free to adjust the size. Just watch the internal temperature.
Dan
Jenny
Loved it! I have a pic can't figure out how to attach it☹️ Anyway
si nice not having to wait for meatloaf to cook.
Made 6 turkey meatloaf burgers, have 3 1/2 for tomorrow! (my husband went back for 1/2 a burger more. I made a Santa Fe salad, no bread. So good! Thanks
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Jenny,
Glad it worked well for you.
There is no provision in the software to upload photos in comments. I can do it in a reply if I jump through a lot of hoops each time. I have done it a couple of times with information I thought was very important to answer the question.
Thanks for the note and rating.
Dan
Anne
Thanks for a great recipe. I used half 80% beef/half turkey and the fat level was perfect. Everyone loved it! I may never go back to traditional meatloaf!
DrDan
Hi Anne,
Welcome to the blog.
I love recipes that I can remember the whole thing like this one.
I like the turkey idea, maybe next time for me. We finished the leftovers yesterday so a few weeks.
Dan
Nancy
Made these on vacation for family, everyone loved them. Going to make them again this week at home!
DrDan
Hi Nancy,
Welcome to the blog.
I do love this recipe. It makes the burger something special and not much work.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
jake Matz
We just made them and everyone agrees they are divine THANK YOU !!!
I don't know if I ever want to make regular burgers again LOL
DrDan
Hi Jake and welcome to the blog.
I haven't done a meatloaf or these all summer but fall is almost here and I can see them now.
Thanks for the note and glad it worked well for you.
Dan
Leslie
Made these again with your chicken wings and blue cheese dip 5 star favorite party food recipes. Thank you
Jane
WHat percentage fat worked best for you?
DrDan
Usually ground chuck which is 19% fat around here. You want "ground beef" not hamburger which can have random other fat added. And 15-20 % works great. Since the milk and bread add moisture, you could use a lower fat product.
Dan
Ursa
I used to use this recipe until I discovered that using oatmeal instead of bread crumbs makes it healthier and just as delicious (probably better)
Julie19
Great recipe idea! Wondered if Ground Turkey and egg whites would get the same delicious results because sodium content is an issue in our house??
DrDan
I have done it that way and the results are close to the same but I admit to being a bit more of a beef person.
DrDan
Mark
I make meatloaf all the time. I'll be trying this one.
Leslie
Made these tonight without the egg, used Sriracha ketchup (that's all I had), added some finely chopped celery and carrot, & topped with some grated white cheddar a few minutes before done. Best burger/meatloaf recipe ever, they melted in my mouth, deserves a 10 star rating!
DrDan
My bad... It has been a bad couple of days.
There is one egg in my recipe. And I have fixed the post. Now if it is that good without the egg just leave it out.
But thanks for the review, modifications and rating.
Dan
Leslie
I love that you show pictures of your ingredients, however showed an egg but did not list it in recipe, do you use an egg?
TeeVee
Fantastic idea and recipe!! The mention of "meatloaf" in my home begins a chorus of groans but this "meatloaf burger" recipe had my family singing for seconds! I love to make meatloaf and personally enjoy it because it's tasty, easy to prepare and rather foolproof -- doesn't dry out like chicken or pork often do, and is cheaper than steak! I planned to grill the same old-same old burgers for dinner but it started to rain and I didn't feel like grilling under an umbrella. Found this recipe and was glad I did! I followed the instructions as printed, except used ground sirloin and whole milk. Yum! Thanks again DrDan!
DrDan
Thanks for the note and rating.
I just had some leftovers tonight. Reheated in the oven, uncovered for 20 minutes at 350 convection. Just as good as the first day. They are so moist and I thought they would tolerate the oven and I was right. I always prefer oven reheating things vs. microwave.
DrDan