Burgers! What are they without their toppings? Let's talk about the most popular trends for burger toppings in 2025!

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, veteran cookbook authors of thirty-seven cookbooks (plus Bruce's knitting books and Mark's memoir!).

We're going to get Bruce's honest reactions to the most popular burger topping trends for 2025. Plus, we've got a one-minute cooking tip for better drinks this summer. And all about sour cherry jam and home-grown currants.

If you'd like to get a copy of our newest cookbook, COLD CANNING, please check it out at this link right here.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:20] Our one-minute cooking tip: Refresh the ice in your ice maker.

[03:20] What are the most popular burger toppings for 2025? Mark lists them for Bruce to see his reaction!

[18:40] What’s making us happy in food this week? Sour cherry jam and home-grown currants!

Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Martin.

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

And together with Bruce, we have written, as you well know, 36 plus 1 37 cookbooks.

The plus one is out just about now called Canning, small Batch

Canning, and Preserving with.

Out a pressure or a steam canner, you can make two jars of strawberry jam.

You can make two jars of pickle relish.

You can make two jars of kimchi, one larger jar of kimchi.

You can store them in the fridge, and many of them in the.

Freezer indefinitely, and you don't have to worry about pathogens.

You don't have to worry about giant processing.

You don't have to worry about hair net.

You don't have to worry about setting up an industrial cooking line, and you don't

even have to worry about the apocalypse because you're not trying to survive it.

You're just making a couple jars of something that's delicious

that you wanna set back and enjoy over the next month or so.

So check out our new book, cold Counting in this.

Episode of Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

We've got a one minute cooking tip.

We are gonna talk about hamburger toppers and the current craze for what

they are and what goes on burgers.

Given that it's summer, um, we have a special way we're gonna do this.

I'm gonna talk about that when we get to it and we'll tell you what's

making us happy in food this week.

So, uh, let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip, and I'm not doing it, mark, is okay.

I am.

And that is.

Refresh the ice in your ice maker.

If you haven't thrown the ice out in your ice maker in three

months, please throw it out today.

I can't believe we have to tell people that

I know, but the ice in your ice maker gets, as they say, stale.

That is the official bartending term stale

rancid.

Ooh, okay.

Rancid isn't.

But it does get stale.

You know what it does, especially if you have a self defrosting freezer, it starts

to clump together in big, icy birds, gross inside your, just gross your, uh,

ice ice tray or wherever it dumps out to.

And also, not only that, it does pick up refrigerator odors over time.

So

when you put the kimchi in there, you're gonna have kimchi ice.

Yeah.

So right.

Throw it out about every four to six months.

Get, get in there and just.

Dump out that tray.

Ours is in a tray.

I don't know how yours is a bucket, however it dumps.

Dump it out and let it start again.

And by the way, if you haven't changed the filter on your fridge in a while,

maybe it's time to do that for the water.

Can't

believe we have to tell people that too.

I know, but so it goes.

Okay.

That's our one minute cooking tip.

If you want better iced tea, better drinks.

Better.

I don't know.

Frozen drinks.

Better daiquiris this summer.

Just change the ice in your ice maker.

All right.

Before we get.

To our main segment about Burger Toppers In this podcast, let me say

that we do have a TikTok channel cooking with Bruce and Mark.

You can check out there the two of us we're making all kinds of dishes

into on TikTok, and we're also beyond that talking about us, how we met.

Oh, it's a whole story.

Thing so you could check.

It's fun.

It is.

You could check us out on TikTok and believe it or not, it's called

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Aren't we clever?

Um, there's even a YouTube channel called Cooking with Bruce and Mark,

but the TikTok channel is much more active, so check that out if you

want to find out more about us.

All right.

On to the next segment.

Of this podcast,

we're gonna talk about the most popular hamburger toppers these days.

Mm-hmm.

And this is based on the trends that are out there.

What are people ordering across Canada and the United States, and even into the uk?

I did a lot of research for this, and we're gonna do this in a strange way.

I know what these things are, and Bruce.

Doesn't.

So I'm gonna, I've got the list right in front of me.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm gonna read off the list and Bruce is gonna react to these things

and whether this is a decent thing to put on a burger or not, I'm gonna weigh

in with color commentary, but, uh, we're gonna kind of do this with, Bruce

doesn't even know what's happening.

Okay.

So we get his honest reaction.

So, you ready?

This is Sure.

Based on all kinds of.

Surveys based on restaurant menus, based on marketing, looks across

burger restaurants and across recipes published online, published in, uh,

databases, Epicurious, places like that.

Like what are people searching for?

And also, I can tell you I did a little bit of Google

keyword search on this mm-hmm.

To make sure that this is really what was going on.

Alright.

Please tell me peanut butter, jelly and caramel sauce is one of the

topics.

No, it is not.

And why Mark and I,

why would you

say that?

Because Mark and I went.

Out to dinner once in New England with a famous food writer.

Yes, she was an older woman,

really famous at the time, food writer.

She has since passed away.

She

has, and she invited us out to dinner and took us to one of her favorite places

and she ordered the special, which was a burger, which had peanut butter and

jelly, and a caramel dipping sauce.

That is just perhaps this is why she passed away.

It's so disgusting.

I can't even get my, my brain.

That's why I brain wanted to make

sure that's on

there.

No, it's not.

Okay.

Up first.

Here's the first one.

Ready?

Mm-hmm.

And this is the most popular current hamburger topper

beyond lettuce and tomato.

Okay.

Onion rings.

Yum.

First of all, they're crunchy, and crunchy is good.

Um, as long as they're not too breaded.

'cause if there's too much breading, then it's bread and a bun.

Now I can imagine getting rid of the buns and just holding onion rings on the top.

Oh, what, how, how?

I don't know.

I would just do it.

I, I don't know how you do

that.

Well, actually.

There's a place in New England called Plan B Burger Bar, and I went there

by myself last summer and had lunch.

One day I was delivering something to somebody and I had a burger

sitting at the bar that had barbecued sauce and onion rings.

So I know firsthand that that's fabulous.

Okay,

um, so here's my Clic commentary.

Ready?

Mm-hmm.

Gross.

My color, Terry is gross because I love onion rings.

Mm-hmm.

Beyond the pale.

I love onion rings.

I want them to be super crunchy, and I fear that if I get them near a

hot steamy patty or near ketchup or barbecue sauces or whatever you put on

your burger, they're gonna get soggy.

Well, there's a

way.

There's a technique.

Well, there's a technique to eating them.

You don't put the other stuff, the mayonnaise and mustard, the ketchup.

On the burger, but

the burger's hot, that's it's

steamy.

That's, they still stay crunchy because the bun absorbs it,

not their onion ring coating.

And then you have a pile of the sauce and you dip each bite in it

as you eat it, not not buying it.

It works.

Do not destroy my onion rings.

It works.

Do not adulterate them in anyway.

Okay.

And second, the second biggest trend right now on burger topping is a really

old fashioned classic, and that is chili.

Mm, A chili burger.

I used to eat chili burgers back in college.

What I don't like about them is you have to eat them with a fork and a knife.

Ooh.

How European?

You can't

pick them up.

Oh my God.

How French have you.

But then

you also have to have some raw onions, because that's the

only way a chili burger works.

Oh, my stomach.

Oh, my stomach.

And then the other thing is, and this is a. Bigger question

about toppings in general.

You cannot, and I will not allow you to put chili on a rare burger.

'cause the texture combination is disgusting.

It has to be a well done burger.

'cause think about that texture of biting into a rare burger, right?

Woo.

With the chili?

No.

So that's a bigger question.

How do these toppings change?

Based on whether you like your burgers, medium, rare, or well

done, and especially in Canada where they're not allowed to serve

anything, but well done burgers, right?

Well then maybe chili works.

Okay.

That third is again, a huge old fashioned topping for burgers.

It's been around for forever.

The third major thing this summer, based on all this marketing

and keyword search is bacon.

Yes, but not alone.

Bacon needs something else.

You can't just put bacon.

I mean, I loved bacon Swiss cheeseburgers when I was in college.

That was what I ate in New York City diners all the time.

But I have to say that no matter what you put in a burger, ketchup is a given.

Right?

So ketchup with bacon and Swiss cheese, yum.

That is a fabulous combination.

Yeah, I do like bacon, but it has to be with something else.

I

don't.

I don't eat burger with bacon.

Bacon.

Here's my color commentary.

And it's not because I don't like it, it is just it, it seems to

be overkill, but um, I know Bruce loves it, but my problem is.

It if, if I do have a bacon cheeseburger, let's say once every five years, if I

have one, um, the bacon just can't be, um, for lack of a better word, flacid.

No.

It has to be so sharded up that when you bite it, it crunches otherwise,

otherwise you bite it and it doesn't.

Bite and you pull the whole strip of bacon out with each bite.

No, it has to be super crunchy.

It's funny, I don't like super crunchy bacon with eggs, but only on a burger.

Yeah, but on burgers.

Yes.

That's true.

I agree.

Okay, I agree.

So I already know the answer to this one from Bruce.

Oh, you know what my, I know exactly what, so I do know you without a question.

So, uh, it must be mayonnaise.

No, it's dev.

It's uh, it's a devil de ew.

I wish there was a vomit bucket in the studio.

Deviled eggs should never have been invented.

They should be wiped off of hard boiled eggs.

Let's start with hard boiled eggs.

Okay?

I have seen you

eat eggs on a burger.

I've seen you eat fried eggs on a burger

Different.

Different.

That's a, that's a runny, runny yolk.

I do not like a cooked yolk.

Once you cook the yolk to solid, it is inedible it.

Okay.

So why, as my dog would say, you're giving me poison.

Is that what your dog says?

My dog.

My dog says that.

Okay, so why would, let's just think for a second.

Why would someone put a deviled egg on a hamburger?

But it's like

putting egg salad.

That's why.

I guess that's right.

It's like putting egg salad, except there's not as much pickle

relish and that kind of thing.

At least in the egg salad.

I knew as a kid, but I guess I, it's probably for the creaminess.

Once you smush it down in the bun, it's gonna smush out and get the YI can.

Okay.

I can imagine and I wouldn't eat it.

I can imagine the innards of a deviled egg, the yolk part spread on

a burger, but I cannot, well, come on.

It's mayonnaise, it's mustard, it's, it's, you're pushing all my buttons.

Um, well, I can imagine that, but I just can't imagine that white,

and I just can't imagine the bite.

And I'm back to the rare burger versus the well done burger.

Well, okay, that's, it's a textural

thing.

Okay.

But.

It's not your textural thing, so you don't have to worry about it.

Let me worry about rare burgers since you don't eat them.

So, okay, there you go.

Um, here's another one.

This is a little bit surprising and it's a riff.

It's a modern, I think, millennial riff off of an old topping, and that is aioli.

Hmm.

Interesting.

It's mayonnaise based.

I'm, you see there,

there's the old riff.

It's mayonnaise.

I,

I'm not a mayonnaise fan.

I don't like mayonnaise on things unless it's mixed with things

like, I like Russian dressing.

I like tuna salad.

I like salmon salad and whitefish salad, chicken salad.

But I would never in a million years put mayonnaise on bread.

It's just gross.

Okay.

Um, that's fair.

I guess I don't, I I like mayonnaise on burgers.

So aioli, my problem would be the garlic that's usually in aioli and

I would think it would overwhelm the burger, but I, I would certainly try it.

Okay, here we go.

Here's another one.

But this one is very common in our house and uh, I already know

what you think and that is kimchi.

Uh, kimchi is good.

It's not my favorite.

It's your go-to.

You like it with mayonnaise.

I, I love it.

Beyond compare on Burger?

Yeah.

I mean, when Mark does his kimchi and mayonnaise, I always do, um,

chili crisp and sweet pickle relish.

That's my go-to combination.

Um, kimchi iss great.

I love kimchi.

Yeah.

I could put it on a burger.

Yeah.

And spicy.

That's what I like is that it's spicy and a little fermenty and it's umami.

I like all of that.

We

were at this place in Dallas once visiting Mark's parents' hop

daddies, and I had a burger that had.

Um, pork belly, it was,

I love the burgers at

hopped outies.

It wasn't bacon, it was thick cut, super crispy pork belly

and kimchi, and it was really

good.

I mean, they have a range of burgers at Hopped outies.

Mm-hmm.

And if you're near one, I think they've even expanded outside of Texas.

Now, if you're near a hopped outies and we are not supported by them,

I can definitely say try hopped because their burgers are spectacular.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so here's another, now very current Koran topping, and that is chutney.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any kind of chutney on anything?

I'm a chutney fiend.

So just

in case, uh, somebody doesn't know what is chutney?

Think about jam now.

Add spices and vinegar

and drop the sugar dramatically.

Yeah.

Well, they could be sweet, but they're not as sweet as, as most jams.

Yeah.

Don't

think about jam.

Think about.

I don't know what you're right.

Jam.

But,

but, but that's a texture of jam.

It's fruit and sugar.

Add

lots of ginger and aromatic and lots of spices.

Think

Indian spices, think coriander and think garlic and ginger and mustard seeds.

What would you add

with.

Chutney to a burger.

Chutney and cheese are a classic combination, and I can actually

imagine a slice of Bri and some plumb.

Chutney Wow.

On a burger.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, it's now you got it up to a $20 burger.

Wow.

Okay.

A slice of Bri.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I, I would try it.

Okay.

Here's one that does not come from the United States, and you will know instantly

that this is not from the United States.

Okay.

Okay.

But a major.

Topping this summer for burgers in another place.

Mm-hmm.

Is Lime Pickle.

Oh, that's gotta be the uk.

Well of course, because you know the Raj and all that and they've adapted

everything from India of course.

So Lime Pickle is a pickle is just a, some kind of a preserve from India.

And this is limes.

Including the rind that has been pickled with salt and spices.

Super sour.

Super sour, not very sweet, super sour, not very sweet, and it's a really

super salty,

interesting, interesting idea to put lime pickle.

I would put that on the top and then I might put something sweet on the bottom.

I, I. I mean, I can imagine, since we're gonna be in the UK for a second,

I can imagine Branston Pickle better on a burger than, than Line Pickle.

But that's thing You're pickle going.

Sweet again.

Branston Pickle is, um, ru Yeah, but the, the, the sauce on it is molasses and it's

a dark brown sweet Raisiny molasses with.

Chopped up vegetables.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Branston pickle.

See of course me, I would put Branson pickle with mayonnaise

and I would probably, of course put kimchi back on it again

with the branston pickle.

Why?

Yeah,

why not?

I mean, just go crazy.

Okay, so here two, we got two more yet to go, uh, for your reaction.

And, uh, a very current topping for burgers is pesto.

Hmm, sure I could do it.

And we're talking now, not pesto, with pasta and not pesto.

No mixed potato.

Just pesto.

Right.

I can imagine.

Sun dried tomato pesto.

Even more than basil pesto.

Oh,

you're getting fancy.

All right there.

But I

can see it and I can, here's, here's where I'm gonna go.

I can even imagine mixing either of those pestos.

With some mayonnaise and putting it on the burger.

All right.

I can probably imagine that.

I can imagine pesto on a burger.

I don't think I would choose it.

Mm. I think it's a little bit too out there for me.

And the thing about burgers is most of us, at least in North America,

we grew up with a kind of burger.

And we kind of stick to that.

Now, I did not grow up with mayonnaise and kimchi burgers, but I certainly

grew up with cheeseburgers with lettuce and tomato and mayonnaise and mustard.

So there's this kind of a childhood thing.

Mm-hmm.

People grew up, for example, with ketchup, with burgers, and they don't want to

pull away from ketchup with burgers.

Back in the eighties there was this chain restaurant.

French bistro chain restaurant in New York, and I used to go there for lunch

all the time with my best friend and I would get their steak hase countryside,

oh my God, with steak hase, chopped steak.

It was a burger on a plate.

And their idea of countryside is they topped it in the French version of pesto.

It was a garlic and.

Parsley and butter mixture as opposed to basil and garlic and olive oil.

And so I grew up eating this fabulous burger steak.

I love the steak, steak ache, countryside.

I love the, the, the French word shoved and attache just means chopped up.

So steak and then countryside.

Countryside.

I, I so pretentious.

That's unbelievable.

I, I was still eating hot dogs, so what did I know?

Okay, and here's our.

Final topping, uh, for burgers that is very popular this

summer and that is hummus.

Oh no.

The texture's

all

wrong.

It's too thick.

Mm. It's too you.

No, that's Nope, nope.

I'm gonna say nope.

No matter what flavor hummus it is, it's wrong.

Chocolate chip hummus is, I say now sell the dessert.

Hummus.

Because

you could make a burger out of chickpeas.

Right?

You can have a chickpea burger.

That's right.

You can.

So I feel like I'm you.

Why didn't you just put hummus on the bun and top it with ground beef?

I feel

like the problem with hummus is it would have to be, as you've

already indicated, sort of, it would have to be an an extremely.

Thin layer.

Mm-hmm.

I would not choose humus on online burger at all.

No.

Nope.

But I think if it got very thick it would just get so gushy.

Mm-hmm.

That it would be hard to deal with.

Um, I now

maybe the chocolate hummus, I don't know.

Oh, stop All those dessert humus is, I remember the first time I

saw dessert, hummus is in Wegmans.

We were shooting, uh, an episode for QVC and we were down in Pennsylvania and uh,

we went in this big Wegmans to pick up.

Car snacks for the ride back from Pennsylvania to New England.

And we passed the hummus and there was snicker dole hummus.

Mm-hmm.

And chocolate chip hummus.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember taking a picture and posting it on my socials because I was

like, what in the hell is this, that someone would make snicker doodle hummus?

Is this in?

Insane.

So, um, yeah, I don't think I'm one for hummus on a burger either.

Mm-hmm.

I, I don't think so.

I can kind of imagine.

No, I was gonna say, I can kind of imagine hummus on a hot dog, but

No, I can't even imagine it there.

Oh, gross.

No, it's a category mistake.

Yeah, it does seem like a category mistake in cooking.

Okay, so there's our toppings.

For burgers for this episode.

Bruce didn't know the list before.

IL it up onto the podcast and loaded it up into it so that we got his

honest reactions to everything and my color commentary since I

already knew what all this was.

Um, I hope that you thought about what we like and maybe you'll write in and

tell us what you like on a burger.

We have a face.

Book group called Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

We'd love to know what you prefer on your burgers, and if any of

these toppings absolutely grosses you out, we'd love to know that.

You can see that the deviled eggs is the one that Bruce just freaked

out over of all of them, but, um.

Just, no, I'm just imagining that first bite with a half a devil.

There go.

Oh, just, no.

I'm imagining how much it's on my lap, in my lap and how much it's on my shirt.

Anyway.

Okay, so we'd love to hear from you at the Facebook group

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Let's get to the traditional last segment out the podcast.

What's making us happy and food this week?

A friend called me the other day and said she was going to a friend of hers to pick

sour cherries in the friend's orchard.

Did I want to come along?

Well, that's a no brainer.

Of course.

I went along and not only did I go that day and pick three quarts of sour

cherries, I went back two days later and picked another six quarts of sour

cherries, and let me say that you picked all this and she picked, and other people

had been picking, and this woman had two

trees.

It's just two trees produced.

So much.

So I spent about three hours at the sink pitting each one of these little

bright red cherries, and I made 10 jars of sour cherry preserves.

Oh, it's

so good.

I had five times the recipe from our book, cold canning and was

good.

So you, you canned it shelf stable.

You, you did it the old fashioned way.

I did, but

the same proportions.

It's the recipes in the book.

It, it works.

It's delicious.

There's nothing like sour.

Cherry preserves.

It

is a really delicious and fine thing to eat.

I think that one of the things that's making me happy this week is that not only

did Bruce go over and, uh, harvest from this person's house, uh, but we've been

harvesting around here and we grow white.

Currents, red currents grow.

You grow, you're the gardener.

Okay, we grow.

Let me have it.

White currents, red currents and black currents, or as you might

know them, cais, uh, the French term for the black currents.

And we grow all three of those currents at our house.

Uh, we also grow blueberries, but those aren't near ready yet.

But, uh, I harvested.

All of the current bushes this last week.

And I have to say that there was something very zen about it.

If you know about harvesting currents, they grow in little Juul like strands

of multiple of them on a stem, multiple of each of the currents on a stem, and

you kind of have to strip each stem with your fingers and a lot of the

stems, of course, over time lose all but one or two of the berries that are.

I guess they're berries, right?

Berries hanging there.

But you kind of have to work very diligently and slowly.

It's not very easy to pick cards.

Mm-hmm.

'cause you, you do it by kind of your fingertips and you're trying to hold

them in the palm of your, and not squeeze them right before you dump it

'em a bowl and then fill up the palm of your hand again with the next one.

It takes a while and you have to kind of zen out and get into it.

And I did, and I loved it.

I. There was a catbird that was very angry at me that kept kind of flying

near me as I was picking the red cards.

Stop eating my currents.

It said, because I needed to get out there and pick them because this catbird was

having a meal every day of red currents, and I needed to get, uh, as many of

the berries off the bushes as I could.

I could tell you just to say that I did leave.

Some on the bush for that bird, and they are in fact slowly disappearing.

Mm-hmm.

The white currents I left nothing.

They're too precious.

I took them all out and I was able to currents make two jars most.

Yeah.

I was able to make two jars of white current jelly out of what you got.

I haven't touched the black currents yet and can't wait that maybe this afternoon.

Okay, so let me say as we finish up this podcast that it would be great

if you could rate this podcast, give it a dare, I say a five star rating,

and if you could write a review for it, that would be terrific.

Thanks for doing that.

That keeps it fresh in the algorithms, which is everything

these days and apparently more and more with coming of ai.

You should know, we guarantee you 100% that nothing in this

podcast was AI generated.

I did my own.

Google keyword searches for those hamburger toppings.

I did not feed it into chat GPT and my

reactions were genuine.

That's right.

I did not feed it into

clawed, I didn't feed it into any of the AI content generators.

In fact, I never have for this podcast.

So we can guarantee you 100% that we are the real deal and we are

not using AI to create our lists.

And I can tell you we're not using AI on.

Any of those social platforms that Mark talked about on our

YouTube channel, on our Facebook group, on TikTok or Instagram.

Follow us all there cooking with Bruce and Mark.

You will get us and not AI always here on cooking with Bruce and Mark.