Meatloaf Burger Patties make a perfect single serving of meatloaf or serve as juicy, flavorful meatloaf burgers. 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 (scroll for more)
- 🐄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 burger 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
1. Preheat the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
2. Dice 1 medium or ½ large onion.
3. Mix burger, Panko bread crumbs, milk, ketchup, seasoning salt, pepper, eggs, and diced onion.
4. Divide into six portions and form into 4-inch burgers—dimple the center of the burgers about ¼ inch to prevent puffing during cooking.
5. Place on a large rimmed tray.
6. Cover with a nice coat of ketchup.
7. Bake until an internal temperature of 160°— about 20 to 25 minutes.
8. 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, Burgers on the Grill, Juicy Lucy Burgers, and Ground Chicken Burgers.
For a complete old-fashioned comfort food, try my Salisbury Steak Recipe with Onion Gravy.
🔥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 Homemade 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 my Easy 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.
📖 Recipe
Meatloaf Burger Patties
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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.
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.
Your Own Private Notes
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.
Heather Wylder says
Wondering if I can use A1 instead of ketchup. Looks yummy but the ketchup makes me cringe.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan says
Hi Heather,
Welcome to the blog.
Sure, but I wouldn't use an equal volume. You would probably only want a teaspoon or so of A1 in the meat, so make the volume up by increasing the milk or adding some tomato sauce. Use anything you like for the topping, maybe just some brown sugar with melted butter.
I hope that helps.
Dan
OldCook says
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 says
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 says
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 says
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 says
It's a keeper. Dope. (slang for excellent, just in case you don't know) :)
Ca says
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.