How to Make Blended Burgers

Blended burgers are made with a mixture of ground beef and mushrooms. They taste the same as regular burgers, but with less red meat.

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Overhead photo of cooked ground mushrooms in a pan — Blended burgers are hamburgers made with a mixture of ground beef and coarsely ground mushrooms.

What are Blended Burgers?

There's no question that homemade hamburgers are a major crowd pleaser. People just love burgers, no matter what time of year it is.

But some people want to reduce their red meat intake whether it's to help the planet, for health reasons, or to cut costs. That's where Blended Burgers can be a helpful alternative.

Blended burgers are simply burgers made with a combination of ground beef and mushrooms so that the overall beef content is a little lower. It helps stretch the beef a little bit, so that you can make more burgers with the same amount of meat, and each burger contains just a little less meat in it.

However, that doesn't mean blended burgers taste like mushroom burgers, or are noticeably different in any way at all! I've been feeding them to my picky kids for well over a year, and they haven't noticed any difference yet (and I don't plan on telling them...shhh!)

Cooked hamburger patties in a skillet — The benefits of blended burgers include increased affordability, decreased total and saturated fat content, and increased sustainability.

What's the best mushroom to beef ratio to use for blended burgers?

I've made blended burgers with a variety of different mushroom to beef ratios. I started low, with a 1:2 mushroom to beef ratio. The most recent batch I've made (pictured in the photos in this post) used a much higher 2:1 mushroom to beef ratio. I used 2 pounds of raw mushrooms and one pound of ground beef.

My preferred ratio is 1:1 mushrooms to beef (by weight).

All of the ratios worked just fine, and my kids didn't detect the mushrooms in any of them. You could use any of them and end up with a perfectly great burger. I'll tell you a bit more about each of the ratios I tried below so you can make your own decision based on your preferences.

Cooked hamburger patty on a spatula — I prefer to use a 1:1 mushroom to ground beef ratio (by weight) to make blended burgers, but if you've never tried them before, it might be best to start with a 1:2 ratio (eg. ½ pound of ground mushrooms mixed with 1 pound of ground beef).

1:2 Mushroom to Beef Ratio

This is a great ratio to use if you're just starting with blended burgers. With half the amount of mushrooms to beef, you probably won't notice them at all. However, with a smaller amount of mushrooms, you won't stretch the beef as much, so the blended burger benefits will be less.

1:1 Mushroom to Beef Ratio

This is probably my preferred ratio to use. With an equal amount of mushrooms and beef, you still won't notice the mushrooms, but you'll get approximately 1.5 to twice the number of hamburger patties you would get from a pound of ground beef.

2:1 Mushroom to Beef Ratio

At double the amount of mushrooms to beef, you will start noticing the mushrooms in your burger (however, my picky kids still ate them happily). The color of your cooked burger patties will definitely be darker. You can see that in these pictures - no, they're not burnt. And you will definitely taste the mushrooms. But, if you're a mushroom lover like me, that might be a good thing. The burgers will still hold together nicely, and you will really stretch that pound of ground beef to make more burgers.

Plain blended burger on a bun — When making blended burgers, the mushrooms need to be ground in a food processor, or chopped fine. Then the mushrooms are cooked completely before being mixed with raw ground beef.

How do you cook blended burgers?

The most important thing to remember when it comes to cooking blended burgers is that the ground mushroom mixture needs to be cooked before adding it to the raw ground beef to form patties. Once the mushroom mixture is cooked, it resembles cooked ground beef itself (see first photo in the blog post or the picture in the recipe instructions).

The cooked mushroom mixture can then be mixed with the ground beef, formed into patties, and cooked however you normally cook your burgers. I cooked them in a skillet for this post because we don't have a working grill yet, but they can just as easily be grilled. Make sure you use an instant-read thermometer to ensure they've reached a safe internal temperature (160°F), which should be the case with all burgers you make.

Hamburger on a white plate — Once the blended beef mixture is formed into patties, the burgers can be cooked the same way you usually cook burgers: in a skillet, on a griddle, or grilled.

Want more Burger related recipes?

Baked hamburger buns on tray — Homemade Hamburger Buns

Smoky chipotle burger — Smoky Chipotle Burger

Blended Burger Nutrition Notes:

The nutrition information in the recipe below uses 1 pound of mushrooms for the calculations, and includes one hamburger bun, but does not include any additional toppings.

If you use less mushrooms to make your burgers, the patties will be slightly smaller with little appreciable change to the nutrition info.

If you use more mushrooms, your burger patties may be larger with little appreciable change to the nutrition info, or you may make an extra hamburger patty or two, which would mean each patty would have less calories, fat, protein, etc.