Traeger Smoked Burgers

The perfect blend of sweet and salty, these smoked burgers with candied bacon, cheddar cheese, and fried eggs are one of my favorite things to make on the Traeger grill. Everything smokes at the same temperature for about an hour and a half, making it an easy recipe to knock out with minimal prep or planning. Let’s take a look at how to make them and all the customizations you can make to your Traeger burgers.

Best Ground Beef for Smoked Burgers

The gold standard when it comes to ground beef for homemade burgers is ground chuck or 80% lean ground beef. This has the best ratio of lean meat to fat, providing moisture and flavor. You’ll hear some people talk about blends of beef being superior for burgers but unless you’re grinding your own beef, just go with a quality 80/20 or 85/15 at the leanest.

Burger Seasoning vs Salt and Pepper

Plenty of burger enthusiasts say salt and black pepper are all your burger needs, and I agree when it comes to making smash burgers or thin patties. But these smoked burgers call for behemoth 6 oz patties. Salt and pepper do a great job, especially in combination with the smoke, but you might find the center a little bland.

So I think a quick burger seasoning goes a long way. The recipe calls for a blend of brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, and chili powder. Feel free to use a pre-mixed burger seasoning or some form of beef dry rub if you have a favorite.

Just be sure not to over mix your ground beef. I like to sprinkle the seasoning over both sides and kind of stack and fold the ground beef on itself to mix. You get a surprisingly even distribution. Then it’s as simple as dividing the meat into fourths and forming patties.

If you have pastry rings or some type of straight sided silicone mold, you can use that to form the signature straight sides of a smoked hamburger. If you don’t have anything with a straight side, you can just use your hands to press the sides reasonably flat as you spread the patties out.

You’re looking for a burger patty that’s slightly larger than the bun you’re using. Though I’ll mention if you’re using some type of jumbo or mini buns, and your patty size fits that, your cook time may vary due to the difference in thickness.

Smoking Burgers on the Traeger

I like to go reasonably low and slow for thicker smoker burgers like these. You get a nice crust on the outside, the distinctive smoke ring, and the centers stay nice and juicy.

To make these smoked burgers, I used Traeger Signature pellets on a Pro 575 grill. Cook times in other models and pellet smokers may slightly vary. You can use the Traeger probe or a wireless thermometer like the Meater thermometer (pictured below) to monitor your burgers internal temperature to know when to pull them.

Safe Burger Temperature

Why can you safely cook a steak medium rare but not a burger? It’s because bacteria lives on the surface of meat. So when you grind meat, that surface bacteria is blended in with everything else. That’s why the USDA recommends cooking all ground meat to an internal temperature of 160ºF and ground poultry to 165ºF.

That’s not an issue when you’re making something like ground pork tacos or a cheeseburger skillet, but burgers are a different story. For tender and juicy burgers, there are two workarounds:

1. Freshly grind your own hamburger meat, limiting the exposure to the bacteria of a butcher or grocery store.
2. Pasteurize the ground meat.

These smoked burgers use the second method. Pasteurization may remind you of milk and possibly egg whites, but it’s essentially bringing something up to a temperature and holding that temperature long enough to kill any bacteria. For ground meat, 12 minutes at 140ºF does the trick.

If you’re tempted to go even lower with the internal temperature, I wouldn’t recommend it. Safely pasteurizing ground beef at 130ºF takes 2 hours, in comparison. If you want to go lower for a more rare burger, you’ll want to grind your own meat.

Sources: Safe to Eat Burgers (Thermoworks) and Sous Vide Burgers (Serious Eats)

Feel free to swap the cheddar for another cheese like burger-friendly American or Gouda. Though with a smoked burger, I think the sweeter condiments like BBQ sauce, sweet jams and burger spreads, and candied bacon go perfectly. And cheddar is the way to go with those toppings, in my opinion.

Related: How to Cook an Egg with a Runny Yolk

What About the Traeger Candied Bacon?

A bacon cheeseburger is classic. A candied bacon smoked cheeseburger is less classic, but I like to dream of a brighter future where it is.

I wanted to make a spin on Traeger candied bacon that you could throw on the grill alongside your smoked burgers. The original recipe calls for an hour at 300ºF, but I found that the 80-90 minutes your burgers will be on the grill at 225ºF is just right for a lower temperature.

You’ll see a note in the recipe card about how the lower temperature won’t make super crispy bacon. I think the candied exterior and slightly softer bacon makes for great eating with the thicker burgers, but you can always crank the temperature up at the end to make crispier candied bacon. Just keep an eye on it to avoid burning. There’s also a note for making regular smoked bacon in case you don’t like the idea of sweet smoked bacon burger.

What to Serve with Smoked Burgers

I love Traeger side dishes as much as the next person, but they’re not always a good fit. The burgers and bacon will take up a lot of grill real estate and cook at 225ºF, which isn’t ideal for most side dishes on the Traeger.

Though if you have a larger Timberline or Ironwood grill, you could probably get away with making bbq baked beans, creamy potato salad, or roasted garlic butter and sweet potatoes at the same time.

Which brings me to my indoor cooking specialty, the air fryer. If you have one, or the indoor cook in your house has one, I would request one (or a few) of the following:

• smashed potatoes
• twice air fried potatoes or baked potatoes
• lemon butter green beans
• cajun fries or crinkle cut fries
• ranch potato wedges

Most of these will be on the healthier side, if you’re into that sort of thing. More ideas for what to serve with burgers.

I can’t wait to hear what you think about these Traeger smoked burgers. Let me know how they turn out in a recipe review or comment. You can leave any recipe questions you might have in the comments as well.