14 Types Of Regional Burgers

As iconic as apple pie, the hamburger is a classic American food. The burger we know today, a beef patty placed inside a bun, found its first big audience at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. However, some food historians trace the origins of the hamburger even further back to 13th-century Mongolia. Fast forward to today, and hamburgers can be found everywhere. From the cheapest fast-food burger chain to a gourmet Kobe beef burger served in an expensive restaurant, it's hard to imagine the U.S. dining scene without the hamburger.

A wonderful thing about hamburgers is their versatility. You can customize a burger just about any way you want. Plain, slathered with condiments, piled high with toppings, or just meat and cheese on a bun, hamburgers are made for creativity. Throughout the years, different variations of the American hamburger have cropped up around the country. In Minnesota, they stuff their beef patties with cheese, while in California you can find burgers slathered in chili. In Missouri, you may find a burger on the menu topped with peanut butter. Read on because we've rounded up some of the most legendary regional burgers around.

In 1885, Charlie Nagreen was frying up meatballs in butter for the Seymour Fair in Wisconsin. To make his meatballs easier to eat, he smashed them and placed them between two pieces of bread. Some say Nagreen invented the hamburger that day. While the origins of the American hamburger remain in dispute, it does seem that Nagreen invented the Wisconsin butter burger.

About 50 years later, two Wisconsin restaurants began serving their version of butter burgers, Solly's Grille and Kroll's Hamburgers. If you've had a ButterBurger from the popular Midwest fast food chain, Culver's, you'd be forgiven for thinking you have tasted a true Wisconsin butter burger. However, Culver's ButterBurgers are made the traditional way and placed between buttered buns with an extra pat of butter on the top bun. While this may be delicious, it's not a Wisconsin butter burger. 

Solly's Grille makes its butter burgers with a lean sirloin patty topped with Wisconsin butter. The butter oozes down into the burger and onto the plate. Kroll's Hamburgers butter burger is made similarly but with Black Angus beef topped with butter. If you'd like to try a butter burger at home, the key is in the beef. When you slather a beef patty with butter, you want your meat to be lean and high-quality. You can make your own butter burger by using high-quality, lean ground beef and topping it with a generous pat of butter.

Slugburgers are one of those innovative Depression-era recipes when Americans were searching for ways to feed people on limited resources. The Mississippi slugburger, thankfully, doesn't contain slugs. Instead, slug refers to the cost of the burger. The burgers were sold for five cents during the Depression, and "slug" was slang for a nickel. Slugburgers were invented to stretch ground beef a little further by mixing the meat with some kind of filler (such as potato flakes, or flour) to make the patty. Today's restaurant slugburgers are made with soy grits or soy meal, while at home, people use cornmeal, flour, or bread crumbs.

The first slugburger appears to have come from the now-closed Weeks Diner, in Corinth, Mississippi. Today, diners can order slugburgers around the state, though it's mainly found in northern Mississippi. The fried patties are usually served topped with onions, pickles, and mustard on a white hamburger bun. The beloved slugburger remains so popular in this part of the state that it even has its own festival held every summer in Corinth.

There has always been an argument surrounding the patty melt — is it a burger or a sandwich? A cross between a hamburger and a grilled cheese sandwich, the patty melt could go either way. In addition to the beef patty and melted cheese, a patty melt is made with caramelized onions and pressed between two slices of toasted rye bread. While it's hard to pinpoint the exact origin, many people point to Tiny Naylor as its inventor.

Naylor opened a drive-in restaurant on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue in 1949 when he began serving patty melts to diners. Naylor's patty melts were made with prime chuck patties, melted gruyere cheese, and caramelized onions on toasted and buttered rye bread. The drive-in diner was a popular spot throughout the 1950s and the patty melt became a common addition to menus around the country. Although patty melts are distinctly a Californian invention, they can be found everywhere today, even on fast food menus.

A Juicy Lucy, also known as Jucy Lucy, is a Minnesotan concoction of a hamburger patty bursting with a center of melted cheese. The Juicy Lucy originated in South Minneapolis on Cedar Avenue, but its actual birthplace remains a controversy. The juicy burger was either invented in the 1950s by Matt's Bar or it hails from the 5-8 Club (both claim its origin.) Regardless of who thought it up first, diners today can still get a Juicy Lucy burger from either restaurant.

No matter where you get a Juicy Lucy, the advice remains the same. Let it cool down a bit before you bite into it, or you'll end up with some severe burns from the dripping, melted cheese. You don't need to head to Minnesota if you've got a craving for a Juicy Lucy. They are easy to make at home and pretty much just involve cooking two burger patties molded around a slice of cheese.

Some truly amazing cuisine has come from Miami's Cuban community. In the 1960s, many exiles from Cuba began settling in Miami, bringing their culture and regional dishes with them. One of these is the hamburger known as the Frita Cubana. This burger was once served by street vendors in Havana and first showed up in America in 1961 at the Cuban-owned restaurant Fritas Domino. Dagoberto Estevil had opened Fritas Domino in Little Havana, serving paprika-spiced burger patties topped with crunchy shoestring fries and placed between a Cuban roll. 

The modern take is usually made with a seasoned all-beef patty, although sometimes the meat is mixed with chorizo. You may also see restaurants offering a fried egg or cheese for toppings, but that's not the original version from Cuba. Today, it's hard to find a Frita Cubana outside of Miami. One local favorite spot is El Mago De Las Fritas where a patty of blended ground beef and chorizo is seasoned, topped with onions and shoestring potato fries, and served on a soft Cuban bun.

You're not likely to run into a pastrami burger outside of Utah, despite the fact that it was invented in California. Utah's pastrami burger is just what it sounds: A beef patty topped with a generous amount of shaved pastrami. It also includes Thousand Island sauce, chopped iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and onions on a sesame seed bun. This strange fusion of meat appears to have originated with James Katsanevas in the 1970s in Anaheim, California, where it was served at his burger joint, Minos Burgers. 

Although it began in California, the pastrami burger was lovingly embraced in Utah when the Katzourakis family opened the first Crown Burgers in Salt Lake City. They were relatives of Katsanevas and added his pastrami burger to their menu as their signature "Crown Burger." Today, you can still get a Crown Burger at the eight locations in and around Salt Lake City. You can also find different versions of pastrami burgers at various other restaurants around the state and it has even shown up as a special offering from Carls Jr.

Oklahoma's onion burger was born of the need to stretch out meat during the Great Depression. In a small town in El Reno, Oklahoma, Homer Davis and his son Ross Davis opened the Hamburger Inn along Route 66 right before the Depression hit. Meat was expensive, but onions were not. The Hamburger Inn fried up generous heaps of onion slices and pressed them onto a thin burger patty. The caramelized onions gave the burger a complex flavor and crispy texture, and the hungry travelers either didn't notice or didn't mind their beef patties were on the thin side.

Today, you can still get an original onion burger from the Hamburger Inn, although it's in a different location. There are also many other restaurants across the state serving onion burgers. While it's not unusual to put grilled onion on a burger, an Oklahoma onion burger is made with a lot of onions. Most recipes call for half an onion, sliced thin, per burger. The cooking technique is to smash the sliced onions into the top of the patty on the griddle, embedding them into the meat. When you flip the meat, the onions will be on the bottom, but a final flip into the bun sets them on top.

You have to really like peanut butter and also not mind melted messes if you want to try a guber burger. Peanut butter was invented in 1895, but it was the 1940s and 1950s when it rose in popularity. It was during this time when the idea to pair a burger with peanut butter came from The Wheel Inn in Sedalia, Missouri. The Wheel Inn served a hamburger topped with peanut butter, mayonnaise, tomato, and lettuce. If you're shaking your head at the combination of mayonnaise and peanut butter, it was once a popular sandwich in the South.

The Wheel Inn is long gone, but there are still restaurants around Missouri serving the guber burger or goober burger. If you don't live in Missouri and would like to try making one at home, this recipe recommends leaving off the lettuce and tomato (unlike the original.) Instead, try adding salty or tangy toppings like crisp bacon or sliced pickles. When you add the peanut butter topping, it will melt into the hot hamburger, creating a slightly sweet, peanutty sauce.

Don't let the name fool you. A San Antonio bean burger is not plant-based. A Texas invention, the bean burger is a beef patty topped with refried beans, diced onions, corn chips, and processed cheese. Although nobody disputes it originated in San Antonio, its exact birthplace is in doubt. We do know that Frank Sills, owner of the Sills Snack Shack made the San Antonio Bean Burger famous. The Sills Snack Shack operated from the 1950s through the 1980s, serving up a burger patty smothered with refried beans.

Today, you can find various versions of the bean burger across San Antonio. While the original used Fritos and Cheez Whiz, modern variations may contain crushed tortilla chips, queso, or cheddar cheese. Sometimes you will see other toppings, such as sliced jalapeños, onions, or avocados. It's important to note when the burger originated in the 1950s, Cheez Whiz had only been sold in America since 1953. It was also a different product than today, containing less suspicious ingredients and being made of actual cheese.

It's important to note the "chile" in a green chile cheeseburger is not referring to the meat dish chili, but to a green chile pepper. Green chiles are peppers that have not matured and turned red, and they are a key ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. Like many iconic American foods, the exact origin of the green chile cheeseburger is hard to place. However, most roads lead back to Frank Chavez and his wife, Dee. The Chavezes opened the Owl Bar and Cafe in 1945 in the tiny town of San Antonio, New Mexico. 

The original Owl Bar is still open today, and it still serves the now-famous green chile cheeseburger, known as the Owl Burger. However, you don't have to travel to San Antonio, New Mexico to find a chile cheeseburger; they are on menus across the state. Though there are different variations, many recipes include a beef patty topped with roasted hatch green chiles, onions, cheese, and maybe some additional toppings like lettuce and tomato slices.

A Carolina-style burger is a variant of a chili burger where the beef patty is topped with a serving of chili. However, a Carolina burger takes it up a notch and includes coleslaw for a big, messy treat. Unlike chili, you will find in other parts of the country, Carolina chili is meat-only without beans. You can also make your hot dog, Carolina-style by adding chili and coleslaw. Many recipes also add mustard and onions, while the addition of cheese seems to be a topic that's hotly debated.

We really don't know who the first person was to add chili and coleslaw to their burger, but we can trace back Carolina-style burgers, also called slaw burgers, to Duke's Grill in Monroe, North Carolina, which opened in 1952. Duke's Grill is still open today for limited hours, serving up traditional Carolina burgers. If you'd like to sound like a local, order your burger "all the way" to make it Carolina-style.

The iconic American chili burger can be traced back to Thomas M. DeForest. Although it's hard to pinpoint exact origins, most give DeForest credit with inventing a hamburger topped with chili. DeForest's restaurant, Ptomaine Tommy's, operated in Los Angeles from 1913 to 1958 and was famous for its chili. Here, DeForest sold his chili based on two different ladle sizes, one to top the burgers and one for a bowl. These became known as "size" and "oversize." The burgers here were served open-face and could be topped with cheese and chopped onions. If you were really hungry, you could get an open-faced burger with an "oversized" ladle of chili.

Although Ptomaine Tommy's is no more, there are plenty of places today to get a burger slathered in chili. One local favorite, Original Tommy's has been serving chili burgers in Los Angeles since 1946. Here, diners can get burgers, hot dogs, or fries, all smothered in chili. 

Olive burgers are such a beloved Michigan creation, that a festival is thrown each year in celebration of them. Each October, the Olive Burger Festival occurs in Lansing, Michigan, where a variety of food trucks serve up this unique hamburger. It's pretty difficult to find an olive burger outside of Michigan and outsiders may be surprised to learn that the olives aren't cooked up inside the patty. Instead, an olive burger is a typical beef patty. 

The toppings on an olive burger include either plain mayonnaise or an olive-mayo sauce. Traditionally it's topped with Swiss cheese, but some variations may offer American or cheddar. Usually, an olive burger doesn't have many toppings, but it could have lettuce, onion, pickles, or tomato. What's most important is a generous portion of sliced green olives. The likely place that first served an olive burger was the original Kewpee Hotel Hamburg founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan. Today, the original Kewpee is now a chain of restaurants called Halo Burger, with olive burgers still on the menu.

Many things in the American South are deep-fried, so why not a hamburger? In 1912, Dyer's Burgers began serving its iconic, deep-fried burgers. It all happened by accident when a cook forgot to clean the grease out of a pan the next day when frying up burgers. The burgers turned out so amazingly delicious cooked in the grease, that Dyer's still uses the same over 100-year-old grease to fry its burgers today. The grease is strained each day, but it's still the very same grease used over and over again through the years. Dyer's burger patties are smashed thin and cooked in large skillets full of grease. As they cook, they rise to the top and are ready to be placed on a bun.

The deep-fried burgers cook up fast and are then topped with traditional toppings like cheese, onions, mustard, and pickles. If you're really looking for a decadent, greasy meal, (or a heart attack) you can ask your Dyer's server to "double dip it." This means the entire burger, bun included, is dipped in the grease before being wrapped up and served. If you can't make it to Memphis, you can make your own by frying a beef patty in an oil with a high smoke point, like peanut oil. According to chef Alton Brown, if you get the heat right, you won't end up with a greasy mess, but instead, you will have a perfectly cooked, crispy burger.