Cheeseburger Pizza

This Cheeseburger Pizza recipe has it all! Ground beef, onion, cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mustard, on a sesame seed crust.

All of Jeff’s friends love pizza, burgers, barbecue, and beer. He’s no different . . . he just like to class them up a bit.

He brews his own beer, makes his own pizza (you’ve read about many of them), smokes his own root beer ribs, and tries every joint in the greater Detroit area claiming “voted best burger”.

With this pizza, he decided to do a fusion (just like my fusion gyro pizza and taco mac and cheese and General Tso’s meatballs recipes). Behold the cheeseburger pizza.

The inspiration behind this cheeseburger pizza recipe:

If you are like him, you like classic burgers. I am talking about the ones made at bowling alleys and little holes-in-the-wall.

These are places where handmade patties are caramelized and sesame seed buns are toasted on a large flat-top griddle.

They usually come with only the basics – cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions.

And while sometimes a turkey burger salad hits the spot when we want to eat a little lighter, there’s really nothing like combining the two comfort classics of cheeseburgers and pizza like we’ve done with this cheeseburger pizza recipe.

What ingredients do I need for this hamburger pizza recipe?

You’ll need pizza crust for this hamburger pizza recipe, but the toppings are really up to you, and what you normally like to eat on your cheeseburgers!

Here, we took the toppings from our favorite bar burger, and added some lettuce and tomatoes for freshness. To make the cheeseburger pizza recipe shown in these photos, you’ll need:

• pizza dough – you can make homemade pizza dough or just buy it at the store.
• ground beef – I recommend 80/20 ground chuck for best flavor.
• onion – white or yellow onion is best for this recipe.
• sharp cheddar cheese – I love the sharp tang of this cheese on this burger pizza.
• lettuce – classic crunchy iceberg lettuce is my favorite for this hamburger pizza recipe.
• tomato – I chopped up a Roma tomato for this burger pizza.
• pickles – I used bread and butter pickle slices. These can also be used for egg salad with pickles!
• mayonnaise – it sounds weird, but mayo is going down on the crust first and acting as our pizza sauce.
• ketchup – for drizzling over the top.
• mustard – another drizzle for the top. This really makes it look like a cheeseburger!
• sesame seeds – to add that sesame seed bun feel to the edges of the pizza crust to really make this feel like a Big Mac pizza recipe. Or you could go next level and sprinkle with everything bagel seasoning.

If you can, use a pizza stone for this hamburger pizza!

Pizza stones are a wonderful product because they help to achieve that wood-fired oven crispy crust without spending a couple grand on an actual pizza oven.

I LOVE a crispy crust for Brussels sprouts pizza and buffalo shrimp pizza, as well as this cheeseburger pizza recipe.

You simply throw the pizza stone in the oven as it preheats (usually to a high temperature like 400 degrees F) and once the oven comes up to temp you put the freshly stretched dough for this hamburger pizza recipe down on the stone and stick the stone back in the oven to crisp up.

P.S. Make sure you brush up on how to clean a pizza stone to ensure it lasts a long time!

How to make cheeseburger pizza:

We achieved the toasted sesame seed bun for this cheeseburger pizza recipe feel by using a pizza stone to brown off the pizza crust before adding any toppings.

This is called “blind baking,” and we use this method to ensure a crispy crust for chicken pizza and vegetarian quiche, too!

Once the crust for our burger pizza was a little bit browned, we spread it with a thin layer of mayonnaise and sprinkled the outside edge with sesame seeds. Think deconstructed Big Mac bun.

The thin layer of mayonnaise also helps the toppings stick to the crust, since we’re not using a traditional pizza sauce here (kind of like how my crab rangoon pizza uses cream cheese).

Then, we sprinkled the crust with cooked ground beef (with onions) and shredded cheddar cheese and returned it to the oven to melt the cheese.

After that, we simply topped this hamburger pizza recipe with lettuce, tomato and pickles, and then drizzled it with ketchup and mustard right before serving!

What sauce for burger pizza?

You actually have a couple of options for the sauce for this cheeseburger pizza recipe. The first time we made this hamburger pizza recipe, we made a riff on a Big Mac sauce by mixing equal parts ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise with a little splash of hot sauce.

It was tasty, but it’s honestly just as yummy (and easier and less dishes) to use mayo as the “pizza sauce” and then simply squirt the finished burger pizza with ketchup and mustard!

How to make a bacon cheeseburger pizza:

Well, make it a BACON Cheeseburger pizza recipe by adding bacon, of course!

Before you start your pizza, use my “how to cook bacon in the oven” post to make perfect, crispy bacon strips just like the way I learned in culinary school.

Then, chop up the bacon and sprinkle it over the pizza at the same time you add the ground beef and cheese.

Other ideas to make this pizza your own:

• top with avocado or red pepper guacamole to give it a California feel.
• add mushrooms, because they are a great burger topping.
• make it spicy by adding pickled jalapeno peppers.
• get really adventurous and add a few fried eggs to the top!
• turn the toppings into a crostini pizza bar!

What to serve with this Big Mac pizza recipe:

Honestly, this hamburger pizza recipe is a whole meal on a pizza, and I really don’t think you need a side dish.

So, how about a great drink? I recommend a honey old fashioned for the bourbon lover(s) in the family (or possibly a brandy old fashioned) and strawberry ginger lemonade for everybody else.

We hope you enjoy combining our favorite foods and indulging in this creation.

Note: This recipe was originally published in 2014. The post was updated in 2021 to be more informative, and the photos were reshot. The original photos appear below.