The best and easiest Sous Vide Hamburger recipe – extremely tender and juicy EVERY TIME! The sous vide method helps to cook burgers to the perfect doneness by controlling the temperature precisely. It’s a guaranteed success, so say good-bye to tough, dry, and crumbly burgers!
Finish with a quick sear and serve with a side of Fruit Salsa or Corn on the Cob.
This easy and foolproof recipe uses just a few simple ingredients. With sous vide cooking, you can nail the perfect texture every time and have deliciously memorable burgers this summer!
Table of Contents
Why sous vide burgers are the BEST?
We all know that grilling hamburgers, especially thick ones, is much trickier than grilling a steak. With the traditional cooking methods, burgers are so easy to turn tough, falling apart, charred outside but somehow raw in the middle.
Enter sous vide! It’s a water bath cooking method by using an immersion circulator to heat the water to a certain temperature. You can cook the vacuum-sealed food to a very precise temperature in the warm water bath.
- This sous vide hamburger recipe produces the super juicy burger that’s impossible to achieve with traditional method.
- It’s foolproof as you can set the temperature precisely, and you’ll never overcook or undercook your burgers again! Plus, your burger will be evenly cooked edge to edge.
- Best of all, no more babysitting your grill while cooking. You can spend the time with your guests and let the sous vide machine do the work for you!
Select the right meat
Great hamburgers start with the right ground beef. It’s best to use an 80/20 mix (meaning 20% fat) which has more fat. The fat helps to make a juicier burger as well as adding more flavors.
If yours is a 90/10 mix, you can add a tablespoon of olive oil or some finely chopped bacon to the meat.
How to make sous vide hamburger
This sous vide burger recipe is incredibly easy – just follow some simple steps below:
- Form patties: Shape into 4 patties and chill them for at least 20 minutes before sous vide cooking.
- Season: Sprinkle both sides of the burger with salt and pepper.
- Sous vide cook: Place seasoned patties into a zip-lock bag, and vacuum seal the bag using the water displacement technique (see recipe for details).
- Sear: After sous vide cooking, your burgers are fully cooked. Let them rest briefly and season with more salt and pepper. Then you can quickly sear them on the grill or in a skillet to add some beautiful color.
What temperature to sous vide burgers?
You may ask: do you have to cook it above 160°F as USDA says that’s the minimum temperature for cooked ground beef? Well, it depends. If you cook your burgers the traditional way, the answer is yes. But with sous vide cooking, we can set the temperature below that, and the meat is safe to eat.
The USDA temp guide is for the traditional cooking methods, but pasteurization is based on both the temp and time at that temp. So your beef is safe to eat after the long cooking time in the warm water bath.
My favorite temp to sous vide hamburger is 135°F (57°C). Note that the temperature will rise about 10°F during searing to 145°F. At this doneness, the burger is tender and juicy with a pale pink color. Below is the guidance for other doneness:
| Sous Vide Temperature | Cooking Time | Doneness |
| 123°F / 51°C | 2 – 3 hours | Very rare to rare |
| 129°F / 54°C | 40 minutes – 3 hours | Medium-rare |
| 135°F / 57°C | 40 minutes – 3 hours | Medium |
| 140°F / 60°C | 40 minutes – 3 hours | Medium-well |
| 150°F / 66°C | 40 minutes – 3 hours | Well-done |
Tips for the best sous vide hamburger:
- When forming the patties, don’t overcompress the meat. Make them slightly bigger than your buns as they will shrink a little bit during cooking. (Note that indentation is not necessary for sous vide cooking).
- Don’t use a vacuum-sealer. Usually it’s better to remove as much air as possible for sous vide cooking, but this recipe is an exception. A vacuum sealer sucks too much air out of the bag and will overcompress the meat, resulting a rather dense burger. So it’s best to use a regular zip-top bag, and vacuum seal using water displacement technique.
- The cheese: the classic cheese to use is cheddar, but American cheese also works great for this recipe.
- The buns: Toast the buns so that they’re crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.
- Rest your burger before searing. Let them rest for about 10 minutes and pat dry the surface. This will help them to brown faster.
How to assemble a hamburger?
Hamburgers are the ultimate “build-your-own” meal, and here are some ideas for tasty toppings and sauce.
- Sauce/condiment options: mayo, mustard, relish, sriracha or the mix of a few.
- Standard toppings: lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles.
- More topping options: caramelized onions, bell pepper, guacamole, and chili, etc.
I like to start assembling my hamburger while waiting for the patties to be cooked. Simply toast the buns and spread the sauce onto the bottom bun. Next comes lettuce, tomato and onions. When the patties are cooked, I sear them quickly on the grill and melt the cheese on top. Then I add them to the burger and finish with the top half of the bun. Then scarf it down!
Recipe Tools:
The Best Sous Vide Hamburger {Perfect Burgers Every Time!}
Ingredients
For the patties:
- 1 1/2 lb ground beef (80/20 mix recommended)
- kosher salt to taste (I use about 1 teaspoon to season before sous vide cooking, and another 1 teaspoon before searing)
- ground black pepper to taste
Toppings:
- 4 slices Cheddar cheese or American cheese
- 1/4 cup mustard or other condiments like mayonnaise or relish
- 4 leaves lettuce
- 1 tomato sliced into thin pieces
- 1 red onion sliced into rings
Other ingredients:
- 4 hamburger buns
Instructions
- Form patties: Divide the meat into 4 equal parts and shape them into 4 patties. Don’t overcompress the meat and gently form them into disks. Make them slightly wider than your buns as they will shrink a little bit during cooking.
- Chill them for at least 20 minutes before sous vide cooking.
- Sous vide cook patties: Fill a large container or pot with water. Attach the sous vide precision cooker and set the temperature to 135°F (57°C)*.
- Sprinkle both sides of the chilled burgers with salt and pepper.
- Place the seasoned patties to a large zip-lock bag and arrange in a single layer. Seal the bags using the “water displacement” technique: seal all but one corner of the bag, and slowly place it in the water bath. Make sure everything below the zip-line is covered by water. Then seal the rest of the bag. (Don’t use a vacuum sealer as it will overcompress the meat.)
- Leave the bags in the warm water bath and cook for 40 minutes (or up to 2 hours). Make sure the meat is fully submerged while the seams of the bag are above water. You can add heavy kitchen items to weigh the bag down if necessary.
- While the patties are cooking, prepare the condiments, toppings, and toast buns.
- When the timer goes off, carefully remove the patties from the bag. Let them rest for about 10 minutes at room temperature and pat dry with paper towels. Then season with more salt and pepper.
- Sear the patties: Heat the grill on high heat. When it gets smoking hot, add the patties and cook for about 1 minutes until well browned. Flip the patties and add cheese to the top surface. Cook for 45 seconds to 1 minute until the cheese is half-melted. (You can also use a skillet, but make sure to add a tablespoon of oil before searing).
- Assemble the hamburger with the cooked patties, toppings and condiments as desired. Serve immediately.
Equipment
Notes
- *My favorite temp to cook sous vide hamburger is 135°F / 57°C, but if you’d like to try other doneness, you can find the guidelines above in the post.
Nutrition
More Sous Vide Recipes You’ll Love
Where did you get those references for safe sous vide? They’re way off.
Example: 140 degrees only requires 12 minutes. Yes, 12. Only.
130 degrees takes only 112 minutes.
Hi there, it does take 12 minutes to pasteurize the meat at 140 F to be safe to eat, but it takes much longer to reach the perfect texture. The time table provided in the post is to sous vide cook your burger (which is recommended by major sous vide machine providers), not for pasteurizing the meat. Also, the searing process in the end will raise the temperature for about 10 degrees. Hope it helps.
This is both a wonderful article and excellent recipe for preparing a hamburger via sous vide and searing. Great job, Izzy. I have been cooking steak via sous vide for several years but have not tried hamburger. It occurred to me today, why not?
Fortunately your article appeared in my search, among others, and it is the most complete. I texted my wife earlier to be prepared for a juicy and delicious cheeseburger tonight. I’ll seat it with my Ninja Foodi Grill after I use it to make roasted corn on the cob.
Again, excellent work and thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience, Izzy.
Hi Frank, glad that you like the recipe. Thanks for letting me know. Izzy