Zippy Southwest Smash Burgers: We Finally Nailed the Recipe

These Zippy Southwest Smash Burgers are everything we want in a burger: deeply caramelized onions and jalapeños smashed right into the patties, gooey melted cheese, a creamy zippy sauce, and crispy-edged beef cooked on a blazing hot plancha. After many rounds of testing and tweaking, we finally landed on the version we couldn’t stop craving, so now we’re sharing it with you.

First time making these beauties? Jump to the Join Us in the Kitchen and at the Grill section and then the backstory for guidance and learning.

One thing to know before you make this recipe: it may look complicated at first glance, but it really isn’t. The ingredient list is simple, and the cooking process itself is straightforward. There are just specific steps with specific timing that have to be done in order. Don’t worry, we practiced this about ten times to get it just right for you!

Recipe: Zippy Southwest Smash Burgers

Cooking and Prep Time: 1 hour
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 Batch (for 4 Burgers) Zippy Southwest Burger Sauce

See the ingredients and recipe here for this creamy, tangy, and gently spicy blend.

Burgers

• 1¼ lb. high-quality 80% lean ground beef (or 80% lean ground turkey)
• 1 tbsp Zippy Southwest (or your favorite Southwest seasoning)
• 3 tsp canola oil, divided
• 1 medium yellow onion, very thinly sliced, about 2 cups
• 2 large or 3 small jalapeños, very thinly sliced (about ½ cup)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• A pinch of sugar
• 4–8 good-quality cheese slices (see notes)
• 4 soft hamburger buns

Optional Add-Ons

• Lettuce leaves or fresh spinach
• Sliced ripe tomatoes
• Sliced dill or bread ‘n’ butter pickles
• Sliced avocado
• Cooked bacon strips
• Additional onion slices (raw)

Cooking Instructions

Prepare the Zippy Southwest Burger Sauce ahead of time, then cover and chill until ready to use.

Gather and prepare all desired add-ons so that you can serve the burgers immediately when they are finished.

Mix the ground beef and Zippy Southwest seasoning loosely with your hands or a spoon. Divide into 8 equal 2.5 oz portions, shaping them into loose balls on a parchment- or wax paper-lined baking sheet. Cover and chill while preparing the grill.

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced onions and jalapeños with 1 tsp of the oil, the pinch of sugar, and the salt and pepper. Toss gently to coat. Arrange the mixture into 8 small piles on a baking sheet and let sit while the grill and cooking surface preheat.

Decide who is going to be the time-keeper and who is going to be the burger flipper. Have your timer ready. Cut 8 4-inch squares of parchment paper and set aside. Have a large, wide, flat spatula ready as well as a bacon or burger press (if you have one) along with aluminum foil.

If you have an outdoor cooktop, place a large cast-iron plancha across burners on high to preheat it. Alternatively, preheat an outdoor grill to high (450°F to 500°F) and place your plancha, griddle or large cast iron skillet on the grill grates to preheat. Next, cook the burgers in two batches, following these steps.

• Drizzle 1 tsp of the remaining oil evenly over the hot plancha or griddle, then carefully transfer 4 of the onion/jalapeño piles to the cooking surface. Cook without turning or touching until the onions are beginning to brown, about 30–60 seconds.
• Place one meat ball on each onion and jalapeño pile. Working quickly, cover a meat ball with the parchment paper and press down hard until it becomes a thin 4-inch patty. Remove the paper and repeat with the remaining meat balls in the first batch. Cook without disturbing until the edges begin to crisp, about 2–3 minutes.
• Flip each patty so the onions and jalapeños are now on top. Press down hard again with the spatula or burger press. Place cheese slices on only two of the patties in the batch. Continue cooking until the patties are browned and the cheese is melted, about 90 seconds to 2 minutes.
• Top each cheesy patty with a plain patty to create two double smash burgers. Transfer to a baking sheet and cover loosely with foil.

Repeat the same process with the remaining 1 tsp oil, 4 onion/jalapeño piles, and 4 meat balls to create the remaining two layered burgers, then add them to the baking sheet and cover with foil.

Place the buns cut-side down on the cooking surface and toast for about 15 seconds. Wrap together in foil and move everything to your serving area.

To serve, spread a generous amount of Zippy Southwest Burger Sauce on the top bun. Layer any desired add-ons on the bottom bun, lettuce first, then add the double smash burger patty. Top with the sauced bun and serve immediately.

Notes

• Make-ahead tip: if you don’t intend to serve all of the burgers immediately, don’t add the cheese and stack them at the end of the cooking step. The patties are easier to reheat without the cheese and also freeze better. (This is an empty-nester trick, since there are just two of us.)
• Cheese choices: you can use only one slice, but why? Smash burgers are decadent. Live a little! American cheese gives you that classic creamy melt, but we love to mix it with cheddar, smoked gouda, Swiss, Muenster, pepper jack, even habanero jack. They all work beautifully.
• Peppers: we love the original with jalapeños, but also sometimes use serrano peppers when it’s just us, because we like it hot! But you can also choose something milder, like mini sweet peppers, if there’s no appetite for that extra bite.
• Seasoning: make the Zippy Southwest, my friends; it only takes a few minutes and it truly livens up the patties as well as the onion/jalapeño mixture. Plus, you’ll need it for the burger sauce!
• Buns: soft buns are best. Potato buns are our favorite but it’s also really hard to beat a jalapeño-cheese bun. We’ve also had great luck with homemade farmers’ market English muffin buns.
• Veggies: large tomatoes work best, so that you can use just one slice. And large pieces of lettuce also work best, because they stay in place.
• Bacon: fabulous but actually not really necessary on this burger. But go ahead if that’s your jam! I’ve added bacon a couple of times and loved it! But I couldn’t eat the whole burger.
• Equipment: a cast iron plancha or griddle works better than a skillet because the open sides make smashing and flipping easier. But if you must use a skillet, choose a large one with the shortest sides possible so you can get that spatula in to smash and flip. Also, we prefer to use both a large spatula (for flipping) and a bacon press (for smashing). The bacon press isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s a champion smasher.
• Side dishes: most of my pictures show a salad on the side, but honestly, it never gets much attention. You truly can make this a one-dish meal. But if you insist on a side, make it something light.

Join Us in the Kitchen and at the Grill

First, the prep: making the sauce, getting the onions and peppers ready, and assembling the add-ons.

Next, the magic of grilling the onions, jalapeños and patties – and the smashing, cheesing and stacking of patties.

Finally, dressing and assembling those beauties for the final step: the glorious consumption.

The Glover Gardens Smash Burgers Backstory

Our Smash Burgers Debut Began with a Food & Wine Recipe

We’ve been making these mah-velous smash burgers every few months ever since we found the original recipe in Food & Wine magazine. Inspired by Oklahoma onion burgers, this was a great recipe from the very beginning. But honestly? The first time we made it, we knew we could make it just a little better… and by that, I mean, more to our liking, with a Glover Gardens twist, and with instructions and a process that would be easier for us to follow, again and again.

Tweaking and Experimenting Took Some Time

Every time we revisited the smash burgers process, we identified another small tweak that improved what was already really, really good. Sometimes it was about flavor. Sometimes it was about timing or technique. Sometimes it was just a tiny adjustment that made the whole process smoother, easier to follow, and more fun.

Once, we tried it with a single patty rather than a double-stacked approach. It was really good, but there’s just something about a double-meat burger that’s more enjoyable, and it seems to hold on to the add-ons better.

We love to experiment and I never want to publish a recipe until I feel like we’ve truly gotten it right. I’ve been holding back on this one until The Grill-Meister and I both felt it was solid and we had no more changes to make.

We Learned a Thing or Two from the Next Gen

Our learning didn’t just happen on our own grill; in fact, we got a bit of a smash burger master class from a next-gen Glover, known here in the blog as The Best Eater (my bonus son). His excellent version — while not quite as zippy as ours (he has small children) and without the onions and jalapeños — taught us several important things:

• thinner patties are better
• using a fresh piece of parchment paper for every smash is absolutely the way to go
• smash hard on both sides

Our Changes, Summarized

Once we came back to our own evolving version with those changes incorporated, we knew it was finally time to share. The major updates we made to the original recipe were:

• using a cast-iron griddle or plancha instead of a cast-iron skillet
• seasoning the meat a little more (Zippying it up!)
• seasoning the onions and jalapeños, too, mixing them together in a bow with our Zippy Southwest and adding a tiny pinch of sugar to encourage deeper caramelization
• smashing hard again after turning the patties
• using two slices of cheese instead of one
• slightly reducing the size of the patties

Patty Size Matters for Double-Patty Smash Burgers

That change in patty size was small but important. With two patties per burger, there’s really no need for giant patties. Now at 2½ ounces each, the burgers still end up at close to a third of a pound when stacked, and that’s before you even add cheese, toppings, sauce, and buns. These burgers are BIG. Honestly, we usually can barely manage a side dish when we make them.

And that’s okay. Because if you add lettuce and tomato, you’ve basically got a salad right there. And we often add avocado, too. These burgers are gloriously excessive all-in-one meals.

How Many Smash Burgers You Cook at a Time Matters, Too

Could you cook all eight patties at once? Technically, yes. We’ve done it.

Do we recommend it? Absolutely not.

As you can see, the patties get crowded, and things move fast once the smashing and flipping starts. It’s hard to get the spatula under each patty without disturbing its neighbors, and you have to be very precise when you turn them.

We learned that cooking four patties at a time makes the whole smash burger process calmer, easier, and much more enjoyable.

The Cheesier, the Better

Another thing we changed: the cheese ratio. The first time we made the recipe, we asked ourselves an important philosophical question: If one slice of cheese is good… isn’t two better?

The answer was clearly yes. We mix and match cheeses depending on our mood and what we have on hand.

All the Testing Paid Off!

As I noted above, don’t be daunted by the long recipe! It looks complex, but it’s not. The key is that the cooking process has very specific timing and sequencing, and that’s the part we refined over and over again until we had it absolutely foolproof. I’ve included notes and pictures from a lot of our variations, but the pics in the Join Us in the Kitchen and at the Grill section are all from the last time we made them. That was just last weekend, and we printed and followed our steps precisely. Success!

So now, after all the testing, tweaking, smashing, flipping, and enthusiastic burger consumption, I’m very happy to finally share the recipe along with our learnings so that you can enjoy these mah-velous smash burgers at home, too.

©️ 2026, Glover Gardens