Gordon Ramsay’s pork burger is 500g of minced pork mixed with crispy fried bacon, shallot and smoked paprika, shaped into patties and fried until cooked through, then topped with applewood smoked Cheddar. It comes with a homemade barbecue sauce that simmers while you shape the patties. Four burgers, about 40 minutes.
This is his Smoky Pork Sliders from the Ultimate Cookery Course, scaled up from mini buns to full-size burgers. The book calls them sliders, but the recipe works at any size because the technique is the same: fry the bacon and shallot first so they’re crisp and sweet before they go into the raw mince, add the paprika at the end of frying so it blooms in the bacon fat, then shape, fry and rest with cheese on top. His headnote: “when it comes to burgers, less is more. Trust me.”
The barbecue sauce is what separates this from every other pork burger recipe. It’s not a bottle, it’s onion and garlic caramelised for 15 minutes with brown sugar and paprika, then sharpened with cider vinegar and Worcestershire. By the time you add the ketchup it barely needs it, and the whole thing reduces to a thick, glossy sauce that clings to the patty instead of dripping out of the bun.
Gordon Ramsay Pork Burger Recipe (Smoky Pork Sliders)
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy4
10
minutes30
minutes670
kcal40
minutesHis Smoky Pork Sliders from the Ultimate Cookery Course scaled to full-size burgers: minced pork with crispy fried bacon, shallot and smoked paprika, served with a homemade barbecue sauce and applewood smoked Cheddar. Three ingredients in the patty, because less is more.
Ingredients
- For the barbecue sauce:
Olive oil, for frying
1 small onion, peeled and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
6 tbsp tomato ketchup
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the burgers:
4 rashers of rindless smoked back bacon, finely chopped
Olive oil, for frying
1 banana shallot, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp smoked paprika
500g minced pork
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- To serve:
4 burger buns, split
Baby gem lettuce, shredded
4 slices of smoked Cheddar cheese, such as applewood
Tomato, sliced
Directions
- Make the barbecue sauce first: Heat olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion and garlic with seasoning and the brown sugar, and fry for 5 minutes until softened. Add the paprika and stir. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes until the onion is caramelising, then add the vinegar and let it cook out for 2 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce and ketchup, mix well and cook for about 8 minutes until the sauce has reduced to a dropping consistency. Taste and season. Set aside.
- Fry the bacon and shallot: While the sauce reduces, fry the chopped bacon in an oiled pan for about 5 minutes until almost cooked through. Add the shallot and cook for another 5 minutes until the shallot is tender and the bacon is crisp. Sprinkle in the smoked paprika, stir and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Mix and shape: Season the pork mince and mix well with the cooked bacon and shallot. Shape into 4 patties, pressing gently so they hold but aren’t compacted. Don’t flatten them too thin or the pork dries out, which is the opposite rule to his beef burgers.
- Fry the burgers: Heat a large heavy pan with a little oil. Season the patties and cook for 3 to 4 minutes each side, tilting the pan and spooning the juices back over them as they cook. When firm with a touch of springiness in the centre, turn off the heat and leave them to rest in the pan. Top each patty with a slice of smoked Cheddar and let it melt.
- Build: Toast the buns, then layer with barbecue sauce, shredded lettuce, the cheesy patty, tomato and more sauce on top. Serve straight away.
FAQs
Why fry the bacon and shallot before mixing them into the mince?
Because raw bacon in a burger patty steams instead of crisping, and raw shallot hits you with sharp heat. Frying them together for 10 minutes does two things: the bacon renders its fat and turns crisp, while the shallot softens and sweetens in that bacon fat. Then the smoked paprika goes in at the end, blooming in the hot fat for a minute so it releases its flavour properly.
The result is a patty where every bite has smoky, crispy, sweet bits running through it. If you just mix raw bacon into raw pork, you get a sausage with cold spots. His method is the difference.
Is the barbecue sauce the same as his standalone recipe?
Similar bones, different build. His standalone BBQ sauce uses the same base of caramelised onion, paprika, vinegar, Worcestershire and ketchup, but this slider version is simpler and quicker: everything in one pan, reduced hard for 8 minutes, made specifically to sit on pork rather than beef.
The standalone sauce is richer and more complex. This one is sharper, because it needs to cut through the fattier pork mince. If you’ve already got a batch of his standalone sauce in the fridge, it works here too, just thin it with a splash of vinegar.
Does Gordon Ramsay put sage and apple in pork burgers?
No, and I checked every book. Sage appears in his homemade bangers recipe, where it goes into sausage casings. Apple appears in his roast pork loin sauce. Both are classic pork pairings, which is probably where recipe sites got the idea, but he’s never combined them in a burger.
His actual pork burger goes the opposite direction: smoky bacon and paprika instead of herbs and fruit. As he says in the video: “you can’t season a slider after you cooked it, impossible.” The seasoning page covers his broader rule, and his pork burger proves it. Three ingredients in the patty. Less is more.
Can you make these as sliders instead of full burgers?
Yes, and that’s how the book writes them. Shape the mixture into golf balls and flatten into small patties, fry 2.5 to 3 minutes each side instead of 3 to 4, and serve in mini buns. You’ll get 8 to 10 sliders from 500g of mince, perfect for a party spread or a weekend lunch where people want to try more than one burger.
The barbecue sauce stays the same either way. It keeps in the fridge for days, and his lamb burger with za’atar and harissa is the other good option if you’re putting a spread together.
What cheese does he use?
Applewood smoked Cheddar, specifically. He names it in the book. The smoky cheese echoes the smoked paprika in the patty and the smoked bacon running through it, so the whole burger stays in one flavour lane. Regular Cheddar works if you can’t find it, but you lose that third layer of smoke.
Melt it in the pan: after the patties rest, lay a slice on each one and leave it, the residual heat melts it gently without overcooking the pork.
What goes on the side?
The book doesn’t suggest a side, so the burger and sauce are meant to be the whole meal. A sharp salad or his light coleslaw keeps it from feeling heavy, since the pork and bacon and cheese are already rich.
The full lineup sits in the burger recipes roundup if you want to pick a second burger for the table.
