A foodie hot take: The onion burger is criminally underrated

On a recent Monday, I biked to the Leavitt Street Inn & Tavern in Bucktown to find the place already packed to the gills at the geriatric hour of 5 p.m. We’d all descended for the same thing: burgers whacked into paper-thin disks on a super-hot griddle, seared until crisp then piled on a sesame seed bun with American cheese, tangy house sauce, pickles and caramelized onions.

Taco Sublime, Patty Please, Gretel, Bitter Pops, The Region. Seemingly every burger everyone’s talking about is a lacy-edged smash. The style that originated in the U.S. around a century ago has more recently taken not just Chicago and the nation by storm, but much of the world. However, I’d argue that the modern smash burger could take a page out of a sibling style that also originated along Route 66 in the 1920s, which has yet to gain a big foothold here: the Oklahoma onion burger.

I took a deep dive into the history of the humble hamburger in my new book “The Burger Bible,” wherein I cemented my love of this style. Born in the Sooner State during the Great Railroad Strike of 1922, the onion burger involves pressing a heap of thinly sliced onions into smallish beef patties, griddling them until it all coagulates into a grid-like mass of singed beef and soft, charred onions. Sound familiar — if perhaps even more tempting? Indeed, some argue that the onion burger deserves credit as one of the originators of the smash, given the similar technique used to stretch a limited quantity of beef.

Interestingly, the ingredient cost savings that helped smash burgers proliferate at American diners in the early 20th century may partly explain their renaissance now. We are in an inflation-laden era of soaring beef prices. But we all know that’s not the only reason smashed patties overtook the ruddy, half-pound bistro burgers that populated the menu of every gastropub and old-school burger joint 15 years ago.

OK Onion Burger at Dove's Luncheonette — The onion burger involves pressing a heap of thinly sliced onions into smallish beef patties, griddling them until it all coagulates into a grid-like mass of singed beef and soft, charred onions.

Flattening little beef balls into the cook top creates a wider surface area in contact with the heat, thereby supercharging the Maillard reaction, aka the browning that occurs when a mixture of proteins, amino acids and sugars is heated. Simply put, searing protein creates intense, savory flavors — a technique the smash takes to 11.

Now, I love a smash burger, but I have a few bones to pick with this style — mainly that the meat’s large, flat surface area easily lends itself to oversalting. More egregiously, the obsession with thwacking these things ever thinner sometimes causes the beef to leach enough juice such that the patty turns into crunchy-edged meat leather.

That’s where the onions come in. Smashing a pile of shredded alliums into the little beef balls (as opposed to just piling them on top) injects much-needed moisture and sweetness as the onions release their liquid and concentrate their sugars. They absorb some beef drippings as they sear, yielding a golden color and richness akin to another great culinary triumph: French onion soup.

Despite the fact that only one state separates Oklahoma and Illinois and that our beef industry roots run deep, precious few onion burgers grace Chicago restaurant menus. At the borderlands-inspired diner Dove’s Luncheonette in Wicker Park, a thinnish Kilgus Farm beef and slivered onion patty is hard seared and enveloped in sticky American cheese, trailing sweet golden ribbons of onion from all sides of its soft sesame bun. A smattering of bread and butter pickles supercharges the sweetness, while creamy, Southern-style comeback sauce adds savory tang and heat to this outstanding onion burger.

Uptown falafel and burger joint Ragadan serves one, too, homaging the beautiful collision of co-owner/chef Danny Sweis’ family heritage in Amman, Jordan and the diner his immigrant parents opened in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma Onion Burger at Ragadan — Ragadan’s onion burger blends fatty grassfed beef and a heap of onion shreds, smashed and griddled together so the onions draw in the beef drippings as they sear.

A few Saturdays ago, my Ragadan onion burger arrived as a chaotic, burnished mass of Plains-sourced beef and sweet charred onion strings on a squishy, sesame seed-flecked bun. American cheese oozed molten estuaries into the crevices of the misshapen patty. A smear of z’tar mayo was the tangy, herbaceous glue of this perfectly calibrated handheld that doesn’t render its eater comatose, even when housed alongside a heap of battered fries.

Indeed, more than a master class in balancing flavors, this tasty, Depression-era creation reminded me it has another benefit. As we stare down the prospect of another record-breaking year of temperatures due to climate change, perhaps one way to curb our appetite for environmentally taxing beef means letting it share the spotlight with other ingredients. That allows a few pounds of beef to go further, after all, and adds a little more vegetable into the diet. And let’s face it, have there ever been two more compatible bedfellows than onions and beef?

Let’s make 2026 the year of the onion burger.

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