Tart, crunchy pickles, fried onions, and a hearty slathering of tangy, smoky barbecue sauce: that's what the best barbecue burgers are made of.
For many people, barbecue sauce is a summer staple. The flavor profile is everywhere, from cookouts to the drive-thru line.
But when it comes to which fast-food chain delivers the best bang for your buck with its barbecue burger, that's a little more up in the air.
I tried barbecue burgers from Burger King, Shake Shack, and Smashburger to determine which chain offered the best taste and value.
Here's how three fast-food barbecue burgers ranked, from worst to best.
Smashburger, a Colorado-based chain now found across 34 states, sells a BBQ bacon smash burger for $10.86, excluding tax and fees, at my nearest location in Brooklyn, New York. It was the cheapest of the three burgers I tried.
The burger came topped with cheddar cheese, applewood smoked bacon, crispy fried onions, and barbecue sauce.
Beneath a pile of crispy onion bits, I could clearly see the barbecue sauce, although overall, the burger looked and felt a little dry when I picked it up.
The crispy onions seemed to soak up a lot of the moisture from the beef patty and the sauce in my mouth, leaving a dry bite.
I'm not a fan of any burger cooked past medium, so this well-done patty simply wasn't doing it for me, but how a burger is cooked is a matter of personal preference.
The cheese on the burger I tried also wasn't melted enough to provide enough moisture to counteract the dryness of the burger.
However, the bacon on this burger blew me away. It was smoky and perfectly cooked.
I ordered the BBQ bacon Whopper Jr. and added cheese. It cost $11.09, excluding tax and fees, which I thought was a little pricey for a junior-sized burger.
The burger was served on a sesame seed bun and topped with barbecue sauce, mayonnaise, pickles, and strips of crispy bacon.
There was a generous amount of all the toppings, creating a balanced bite.
The bacon was crispy, though not as flavorful as the bacon from the other two burgers I tried. However, I thought this was a great classic cheeseburger. The onions, lettuce, and tomato were fresh, and the beef was juicy while still retaining a smoky, chargrilled flavor.
However, it tasted similarly to a classic Whopper, and I didn't get a strong barbecue flavor from it. It was a classic cheeseburger, but I was looking for more barbecue flavor.
Shake Shack, which has US locations in 30 states and Washington, DC, offers two different kinds of barbecue burgers: the Smoky Classic BBQ burger and the Carolina BBQ burger with fried pickles.
I ordered the classic version, which is topped with fried onions and bacon. It cost $13.29, excluding tax and fees, making it the most expensive burger of the bunch.
The barbecue sauce evenly coated the soft, fluffy bun and all of the toppings.
I was impressed by the size and thickness of the pickle slices, as well as the amount of crispy onions and bacon stacked on top of the burger patty.
The cheese was evenly coated on every inch of the thin, crispy patty, and the bun held everything together while still retaining its softness.
Though thin and crispy, the burger was still perfectly cooked at a medium temperature, and the onions, though crispy, weren't hard, crunchy, and dry like the onions on the Smashburger cheeseburger I tried.
Rather than bits of cut-up onions that didn't have much flavor, these onions were more similar to onion rings, and instantly transported me back to summer carnivals and roadside stands.
The pickles added a tart, crunchy flavor, and this was the only burger where I really tasted the barbecue sauce. It was smoky yet light and had a slight vinegar taste that balanced out the richer flavors of the cheese, beef, and bacon.
Though it was the most expensive burger, I thought it was well worth the slightly higher price.
