A cheeseburger is a hamburger with a slice of melted

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

on top of the meat patty, added near the end of the cooking time. Cheeseburgers can include variations in structure, ingredients and composition. As with other hamburgers, a cheeseburger may include various condiments and other toppings such as lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles,

bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...

, avocado, mushrooms,

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...

, ketchup, and mustard. In fast food restaurants across the United States, processed cheese is usually used, although other meltable cheeses are used, such as cheddar,

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

, mozzarella, blue cheese, or

pepper jack Monterey Jack, sometimes shortened to Jack, is a Californian white, semi-hard cheese made using cow's milk, with a mild flavor and slight sweetness. It has been called "an American original" and "as a vestige of Spanish rule in the early nineteen ...

. Virtually all restaurants that sell hamburgers also offer cheeseburgers.

Origins

By the late 19th century, the vast grasslands of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

had been opened up for cattle ranching. This made it possible for many Americans to consume beef almost daily. The hamburger remains as one of the cheapest forms of beef in America. Adding cheese to hamburgers became popular in 1920. There are several competing claims as to who created the first cheeseburger. Lionel Sternberger is reputed to have introduced the cheeseburger in 1924 at the age of 16. He was working as a fry cook at his father's

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, sandwich shop, "The Rite Spot", and "experimentally dropped a slab of American cheese on a sizzling hamburger." An early example of the cheeseburger appearing on a menu is a 1928 menu for the Los Angeles restaurant O'Dell's which listed a cheeseburger smothered with chili for 25 cents. Other restaurants also claim to have invented the cheeseburger. For example, Kaelin's Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, said it invented the cheeseburger in 1934. One year later, a trademark for the name "cheeseburger" was awarded to Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver, Colorado. According to

Steak 'n Shake Steak 'n Shake Operations, Inc. (doing business as Steak 'n Shake) is an American casual restaurant chain concentrated primarily in the Midwestern United States with locations also in the South, Mid-Atlantic and Western United States, Europe, ...

archives, the restaurant's founder, Gus Belt, applied for a trademark on the word in the 1930s. An A&W Restaurants franchise in

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, making ...

, is credited with inventing the bacon cheeseburger in 1963, putting it on the menu after repeated requests from the same customer. The

steamed cheeseburger A steamed cheeseburger, also referred to as a steamer or cheeseburg, is a hamburger topped with cheese that is cooked via steaming and originally only served by restaurants in central Connecticut in the United States. Despite it now being av ...

, a variation almost exclusively served in central Connecticut, is believed to have been invented at a restaurant called Jack's Lunch in Middletown, Connecticut, in the 1930s. The largest cheeseburger ever made weighed . It is said to have included " of bacon, of lettuce, of sliced onions, of pickles, and of cheese." This record was set in 2012 by Minnesota's Black Bear Casino, smashing the previous record of . In the United States, National Cheeseburger Day is celebrated annually on September 18.

Ingredients

The ingredients used to create cheeseburgers follow similar patterns found in the regional variations of hamburgers, although most start with ground beef. Common cheeses used for topping are

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, Cheddar and other meltable cheeses. Popular toppings include lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles,

, avocado or guacamole, sliced sautéed mushrooms, cheese sauce or

chili Chili or chilli may refer to: Food * Chili pepper, the spicy fruit of plants in the genus ''Capsicum''; sometimes spelled "chilli" in the UK and "chile" in the southwestern US * Chili powder, the dried, pulverized fruit of one or more varieties ...

, but the variety of possible toppings is broad. A cheeseburger may have more than one patty or more than one slice of cheese—it is reasonably common, but by no means automatic, for the number to increase at the same rate with cheese and meat interleaved. A stack of two or more patties follows the same basic pattern as hamburgers: with two patties will be called a double cheeseburger; a triple cheeseburger has three, and while much less common, a quadruple has four. Sometimes cheeseburgers are prepared with the cheese enclosed within the ground beef, rather than on top. This is sometimes known as a

Jucy Lucy A Jucy Lucy or Juicy Lucy is a stuffed burger with cheese inside the meat instead of on top, resulting in a melted core of cheese. Two bars in Minneapolis claim to be the inventor of the burger, while other bars and restaurants have created t ...

Gallery

File:Burger King Quad Stacker cheeseburger.jpg, A

Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...

"Quad Stacker" cheeseburger, containing four patties and bacon File:Cheeseburger - BrewDog Camden, Camden Town, London.jpg, A cheeseburger at a restaurant in Camden Town, London File:McDonalds Big Mac hamburger cheeseburger.jpg, A half-eaten McDonald's Big Mac, showing the contents of the burger

Origins

Ingredients

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading