7 Grocery Store Burger Seasonings Ranked From Worst To Best

There are dozens, upon dozens of ways to make a burger. From a simple beef patty seasoned with salt and pepper to cheese-stuffed behemoths packed with all manner of flavors, rarely are two burgers exactly the same. For those cooking them up at home, there are nearly as many ways to transform a classic patty into something special, thanks to burger seasoning.

Brands ranging from spice experts like McCormick to grill manufacturers like Weber and Traeger have put their own spin on burger seasoning with results ranging from smoky to lightly spicy to downright buttery. Since there are plenty of options on the market, choosing the right one can be difficult, so I tried seven different blends to find which one stands above the rest.

To determine how much a seasoning blend really elevated a standard burger, I also seasoned one patty with nothing but salt and pepper. With that control in mind, I tried the other seven, and while there wasn't a bad one among the bunch, several definitely elevated my burgers. Read on to learn which burger seasonings deserve a spot at your next barbecue and which are better left on the shelf.

Salt and pepper are the bedrocks of seasonings and have been for a very long time. Picky eater King Louis XIV, the King of France from the late 1600s to the early 1700s, made the salt and pepper pairing famous by insisting that his food not be overpowered by spices. Like any good trend, the nobility of the time blindly followed suit, and soon the salt-and-pepper craze had spread across all classes in France and beyond.

If you're slapping a burger on the grill and you don't have anything else on hand, salt and pepper are a perfectly fine seasoning option. Despite what some people will say, you do need to salt your burgers, but only in the moments before tossing them on the grill. Mixing salt into ground beef can reduce its tenderness, so it's best to wait until the meat hits the flame to add salt, and while you're at it, pepper.

There's no real mystery as to what a salt-and-pepper burger tastes like, but there's a reason it landed in the last spot on this list; it's rather boring. In a world filled with burger seasoning blends, there's really no reason to just go with salt and pepper unless you just want to savor that beefy flavor. No judgment if you do, but I like a burger with some personality, and salt and pepper just don't provide enough on their own to make great burger seasonings.

I love cheese. I'm from Wisconsin, so it's both required by law and in my blood to like cheese, but cheese flavor can be tricky. Kraft Mac and Cheese nailed it, and spray cheese has its moments. But more often than not, cheese flavor comes up short, which is the story with Traeger's Burger Rub.

The front of the 6-ounce package, which retails for $6.99, declares "Onion, Garlic, & Cheese Flavor" but none of those three, or any other species, comes through all that strongly. I sprinkled a generous amount of seasoning on both sides of each burger, and this one simply fell flat.

On the surface, there's no reason for it to underwhelm. The ingredient deck is fairly standard, with sea salt, cane sugar, onion, spices, garlic, and red bell pepper serving as the headliners. Even the blend's scent is hardly worth getting excited over, and honestly, I'm not getting much, if any, cheese flavor. I'm sure if you really cake it on, Traeger's Burger Rub can offer something unique, but I simply couldn't find it, and with so many better options, I'd look elsewhere for my burger seasoning.

I hoped to buy Kinder's Buttery Burger Blend, but my grocery store only had the Steakhouse version. Given the similarities in ingredients, I figured it was worth a shot. Ultimately, the buttery aspect was the most important in choosing one of Kinder's spices, and while it wasn't a total disappointment, it was a bit odd.

Like cheese flavor, butter flavor works well in certain applications — both excel in popcorn, for example — but there's a major difference between actual butter on a burger and butter flavor. Culver's has mastered the butter burger, but if that's the flavor profile you're seeking, Kinder's is not quite what you need. With a hint of fresh herb-focused notes, this blend would likely work better on a steak than a burger, which I'll readily concede. However, the butter elements are where this one falls short. It's just too intense. 

I'll try this blend on plenty of other foods — broccoli feels like a surefire match — and at around $2.99 for a 2.3-ounce shaker, the value is undeniable. But as a burger seasoning, Kinder's buttery flavor simply outshines the meat below.

I had never considered that burger seasoning might come with instructions, but McCormick proved me wrong. The packaging suggests a tablespoon per pound of ground beef or turkey ratio, but honestly, that seems light. I like where this seasoning is trying to go, but in such a small quantity, I'm not sure you'll even notice it's there.

McCormick leans more into barbecue notes than some of the earlier entries on the list, thanks to chili pepper appearing fourth on the ingredient list after salt, toasted onion, and black pepper. The result is a burger that hit my taste buds as smokier than some of the others, but still lacking in flavor.

The price is fair — around $2.99 for 2.75 ounces — but I think you really need to go heavy with this seasoning to make it work. King Louis XIV would not be a fan, but properly ratioed, I think McCormick is on the right track. Still, if you're looking for a blend that doesn't require a heavy hand, keep reading.

Fire and Smoke Society appears twice on this list with two very good seasonings. If you're wondering why a seasoning I enjoyed so much is sitting in the middle of the list, the answer is simple: This is a great chili blend, but not the best burger blend. The ingredient list reads: salt, black pepper, chili pepper, cumin, oregano, garlic, and coffee. You'd be forgiven for assuming this was a chili mix, but Fire and Smoke Society has it labeled for brisket and burgers, which I'm skeptical about.

The cumin, a spice I rarely associate with burgers, is especially prominent. Still, the flavors do work well together. At $7.99 for a 12.5-ounce container, this is the most expensive option on my list, but I'm not upset about having plenty leftover. If you're looking for a very specific flavor profile, Thundering Longhorn will get the job done. It's screaming steakhouse burger, but a later entry from Fire and Smoke Society will provide a taste that's more homemade and better for a backyard burger.

Ahh, Flavortown, where frosted tips and driving with the top down are always in style. Love him or loathe him, Guy Fieri has built quite the empire on the back of big, loud food — he's even got a celebrity chef burger recipe of his own that you can try at home. It's no surprise, then, that a burger seasoning straight out of Flavortown is, well, full of flavor.

For a dollar per ounce, a 6-ounce container of Burger Joint Seasoning will provide your patties with a salty, garlic-forward punch, offset by a backend sweetness. The ingredient lineup is perfectly in line with the flavor notes, with salt, sugar, dehydrated onion, and garlic kicking things off. This is a burger seasoning that, despite what the face on the label might have you thinking, isn't trying to do too much. That may be a theme at the top of the list, where straightforward but flavorful blends earn their spots as the best burger seasonings I sampled.

While Traeger didn't exactly show out for the grill-manufacturers-turned-spice-merchants, Weber picked up the slack. Like the McCormick seasoning, Weber suggests a tablespoon of seasoning per pound of meat, but unlike McCormick, which lacked any real punch, Weber has created a blend that delivers a deep, robust flavor that doesn't need to rely on volume to succeed.

With sea salt, sugar, brown sugar, dried onion, tomato powder, dried garlic, and mustard as the headlining ingredients — there are plenty more after — this is already one of the more complex burger blends I tried. The result of that combination is smoky and sweet thanks to two different types of sugar. The dried tomato adds a richness that other seasonings don't offer, helping make Weber's Flavor Bomb a seasoning that can truly transform a burger. It goes great with beef, and I'm sure this would be fantastic on a chicken or turkey burger, too. At $3.99 for 3.7 ounces, Weber's burger seasoning should definitely find a spot next to your grill.

The number one entry on the list is a testament to simplicity. Fire and Smoke Society already has the best chili seasoning on the list, so it only seems right that it also earns the title of the best burger seasoning with the Back Porch Blend.

When I make burgers, I don't tend to follow a recipe; I season to my heart's content. The resulting creations are usually coated with a combination of salt, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, cayenne (for a little kick), and plenty of paprika. It's no real surprise, then, that I gravitated towards this blend because that's basically the ingredient list of Back Porch Blend. Toss in some tarragon and dill weed — which definitely comes through in the scent and gives me the slightest pickle vibes — and this is a seasoning that feels homemade.

If I'm cooking a burger at home, I want a burger seasoning that's going to give my meat flavor without stepping all over it or trying in some way to transform the patty beyond what it's meant to be; the foundation for a good burger. Back Porch Burger Blend does just that, delivering flavor without losing sight of the real objective. A 6.5-ounce container costs $5.99 and will get you through plenty of patties, so if you're searching for a great burger seasoning, look no further.

I purchased all seven burger seasoning blends at my local grocery store, along with a few pounds of ground beef. (I already had the salt and pepper at home.) To keep the focus on the spices, I made individual beef-only patties for each blend and generously seasoned both sides. I was willing to aim for over-seasoning, rather than under-seasoning, on the whole. 

All of the burgers were grilled at the same time, and sampled almost immediately. My review was based on flavor, scent, and how well the seasoning blend elevated the meat.