Gordon Ramsay’s burger seasoning is five cupboard ingredients: sea salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and a light dusting of chilli flakes. He works half into the mince before shaping, then seasons again as the patties cook. The blend takes 2 minutes to mix and covers 4 burgers.
I took this from his MasterChef burger demo, where he grinds a 70/20/10 blend of chuck, short rib and fat, then says to “lightly season with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper” before dusting with chilli flakes and binding with an egg yolk. The instruction that matters most comes in the same breath, because “the secret here is not to overdo it.”
The technique that separates his burgers is layering rather than one big hit. Salt starts pulling moisture out of mince the moment it lands, so he seasons lightly inside, rolls the seasoning around the patty edges, then hits them again on the heat, which builds a seasoned crust instead of curing the meat. As he says at the grill: “you can’t season the burger after it’s cooked.”
Gordon Ramsay Burger Seasoning
Course: SeasoningCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy4
2
minutes5
kcal2
minutesThe homemade five-ingredient blend from his MasterChef burger demo, layered on in stages the way he does it rather than dumped in all at once. Costs around 20p in cupboard spices, against £2 for a Schwartz jar at Tesco, and seasons 4 large burgers.
Ingredients
1 tsp sea salt flakes
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp dried chilli flakes
Directions
- Mix the blend: Stir all five ingredients together in a small bowl until evenly combined. He seasons by eye on camera and never gives amounts, so these are my tested quantities of his five named ingredients. Making a batch? Triple it and keep the mix in an airtight jar away from the steam of the hob, where it holds its punch for about 3 months.
- Season the mince: Scatter half the blend over 500g of beef mince, add an egg yolk and mix gently with your hands. Stop the moment it comes together, because overworking makes patties dense.
- Coat the edges: Shape 4 patties about 2.5cm thick, then roll the rim of each one through the seasoning left on the board, so every bite carries flavour.
- Season on the heat: Sprinkle a pinch over both sides as the patties cook, with a final light pass from a distance just before they come off.
FAQs
Should you season burgers before or after cooking?
Before, always, and then during. Ramsay seasons the mince itself, seasons the shaped patties as they hit the heat, then adds a final light pass moments before they come off, since salt added to a finished burger just sits on the surface instead of building into the crust. He also takes the patties out of the fridge early, because ice-cold mince turns dry outside while staying raw in the middle.
Not every chef agrees with seasoning inside though. Kenji López-Alt of The Food Lab never salts before the patties are formed, since salt dissolves muscle proteins that cross-link and turn burgers “sausage-like and springy.” Ramsay gets away with it by keeping the inside seasoning genuinely light and binding with egg yolk rather than working the salt through.
Does Gordon Ramsay put garlic powder in his burgers?
Sometimes, and the honest answer depends on which Ramsay you watch. In the MasterChef demo he seasons the mince with onion powder and garlic powder directly. In his cookbooks, from Bread Street Kitchen to Quick & Delicious, his burger patties get nothing but salt and pepper.
The twist is where those powders actually live in his books: Quick & Delicious puts a teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder, plus smoked paprika, into his burger sauce rather than the meat. So if you want that flavour the way he publishes it, it goes on the burger, not in it.
Does he mix Worcestershire sauce into the mince?
Almost never, with one exception worth knowing. In his classic burgers, from Bread Street Kitchen to Ramsay in 10, the only things joining the beef are salt, pepper, an egg yolk to bind, and in one quick version some grated frozen chilli. Worcestershire lives in his barbecue sauce instead.
The exception is the blue cheese burger in his World Kitchen book, where Worcestershire, Tabasco and English mustard get mixed through the mince to stand up to the cheese. Plenty of sites claim ALL his patties hide these, which isn’t true. His actual beef burger recipe builds flavour from the meat blend and the seasoning stages instead, which is exactly why the beef tastes of beef.
Do you season a smash burger differently?
Yes, and timing is the whole difference. A thin patty has far more surface area for salt to attack, so seasoning the mince early draws out moisture and the burger steams instead of crusting. For his smash burger recipe the seasoning lands on the outside only, the second the meat hits the hot pan.
The meat matters more than the spices here too. Seasoning cannot rescue a lean grind, which is why his ratio runs around 20% fat, covered properly in my burger meat blend guide.
How much seasoning does one burger need?
Less than you think. My blend works out at under a teaspoon per burger across all the stages, and that restraint is deliberate. As he writes in Ultimate Cookery Course: “People often add too much to their burgers, thinking it will enrich the flavour, but let me tell you, when it comes to burgers, less is more. Trust me.”
Good beef should taste of beef, so the seasoning’s job is sharpening that flavour rather than replacing it. If your hamburger needs heavy spicing to taste of anything, the problem is the mince, not the seasoning.
Does this seasoning work on chicken or turkey burgers?
It does, with the salt halved, since poultry mince is leaner and saltier seasoning turns it rubbery at the edges. His chicken burger recipe takes a different route entirely, building flavour with sweated onion, garlic and fresh herbs mixed through the meat.
For a different direction on beef, his MasterClass book offers one real spice suggestion: coriander seed, which he calls “great with cumin in homemade burgers.” That pair leans the burger toward a kofta flavour, worth trying when plain salt and pepper feels too familiar.
