Gordon Ramsay Hellfire Chicken Burger

The Gordon Ramsay Hellfire Chicken Burger is the spicy chicken burger on the Gordon Ramsay Burger menu: a grilled chicken patty with bacon, white cheddar, tomato-bacon jam, butter lettuce, hot mayo and a tangy hellfire sauce. This is that burger made for a home kitchen. The patty is seasoned ground chicken, grilled hot until it hits 165°F in the center, and the heat comes in two layers you can adjust separately: a creamy hot mayo underneath and a sharp, vinegary chile sauce on top.

What Is on the Hellfire Chicken Burger?

The Hellfire Chicken Burger stacks seven things, and the restaurant lists every one of them. The Gordon Ramsay Burger Las Vegas menu describes it as a grilled chicken patty, bacon, white cheddar cheese, tomato-bacon jam, butter lettuce, hot mayo and tangy hellfire sauce. The Hellfire Chicken Wings on that menu come in the same tangy hellfire sauce, and the Gordon Ramsay Burger homepage calls those wings out by name, so think of the sauce as a thin, tangy wing sauce rather than another creamy spread.

The build is sweet, smoky, creamy and hot all at once. The jam is sweet-sour, the bacon is salty and crisp, the white cheddar is sharper than a yellow American slice, and the lettuce is there for a cool, soft crunch. It sits in the same spicy corner of the menu as the Hell's Kitchen Burger, only with chicken in place of beef. The rest of the lineup is in our Gordon Ramsay signature burgers guide.

How to Make a Ground Chicken Burger That Holds Together

A ground chicken burger holds together when the mix is cold, lightly bound and handled as little as possible. Ground chicken is softer and stickier than ground beef, so it slumps if you work it warm. A third of a cup of panko soaks up the loose moisture and holds it inside the patty as it cooks; a little grated garlic and smoked paprika season it. Shape four patties about 3/4 inch thick with damp hands (the mix won't cling to them) and chill them for 30 minutes so they firm up before they meet the grill.

Buy ground chicken that isn't labeled 99% lean if you can. Packs made with some thigh meat carry more fat (they look a deeper pink raw), and fat is what keeps a chicken burger juicy once it is cooked through. Salt the outside of the patties just before they go on the grill. Salt mixed into the grind starts dissolving the proteins so they bind into a tight, bouncy texture, which suits a sausage and not a burger.

Wash your hands and anything the raw chicken touched before you move on to the toppings. The CDC advises never putting cooked food back on a plate or board that held raw chicken, so grab a clean plate for the finished patties now.

Grilling the Chicken Patty to 165°F

Grill the chicken patties over medium-high heat for 5 to 6 minutes per side and take them off when an instant-read thermometer in the thickest part reads 165°F. That is the USDA safe minimum for all poultry, ground chicken included, and it is the number to cook to, not guess at. Ground chicken has none of the leeway of a medium-rare steak, and it also has very little fat to protect it, so every degree past 165°F costs juice: the proteins keep tightening and squeezing water out as the temperature climbs. Pull it right at 165°F.

Get the grill or a ridged grill pan properly hot first, then brush the patties with oil rather than pouring oil onto the grates. The grill marks and the golden crust are browning, the Maillard reaction, which starts at around 284°F. A wet surface can't get hotter than 212°F until its water boils away, so pat the chilled patties dry before oiling them. Lay them down and leave them alone until they release on their own, usually 4 to 5 minutes; if they stick, the crust hasn't formed yet. Add the white cheddar in the last minute and cover the grill or pan so the trapped heat melts it. Rest the patties 3 minutes on the clean plate while you toast the buns.

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Don't read doneness from the color. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service notes that safely cooked poultry can still look pinkish and that color is not a sure sign of safety either way, so the thermometer settles it. For another way to finish the cheese, see how to melt cheese on a burger.

Which Chicken Makes the Best Hellfire Chicken Burger?

Ground chicken with some dark meat in it makes the best Hellfire chicken burger, because the extra fat keeps it juicy at 165°F and it grills into a proper patty like the restaurant's. Thigh fillets and a pounded breast work too if you'd rather skip the grind; each one needs a slightly different prep, and every one of them cooks to the same 165°F.

A whole breast works if you even it out first. A chicken breast is thick at one end and thin at the other, so the thin end passes 165°F and dries out while the thick end is still catching up. Butterfly it, lay it between sheets of plastic wrap and pound it to an even 1/2 inch, and it cooks through in about 3 to 4 minutes a side. Thigh fillets need the same flattening and forgive a few extra degrees because of their fat.

Hellfire Sauce, Hot Mayo and Tomato-Bacon Jam

The three sauces are what make this a Hellfire burger, and they each do a different job. The hellfire sauce is thin and tangy: cayenne hot sauce, cider vinegar, honey, smoked paprika and a fresh red Fresno chile minced fine. The hot mayo is mayonnaise loosened with sriracha and a squeeze of lime. Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil droplets held in a little water by egg yolk, which is why the sriracha stirs in smoothly without splitting it.

The tomato-bacon jam is the sweet part, and it's worth making. Render two strips of chopped bacon until crisp, soften a small onion in that fat, then simmer cherry tomatoes with brown sugar and cider vinegar for 20 to 25 minutes. It turns jammy through evaporation: as the water cooks off, the sugar and tomato solids concentrate and the edges start to caramelize. Stop when a spoon dragged across the pan leaves a clear trail. Keep it in the fridge and use it within a week; it is not a canned, shelf-stable preserve.

Put the hellfire sauce on after grilling, never as a baste. Honey and sugar scorch at around 356°F, far below the temperature of a hot grill grate, so a sweet sauce brushed on early burns black before the chicken is done. The honey is also why the sauce clings to the patty in a glossy layer instead of running off.

How to Control the Heat in a Hellfire Chicken Burger

You control the heat of a Hellfire chicken burger with the chile's ribs and with how much sauce you use. The burn comes from capsaicin, and New Mexico State University explains that it's made by glands on the placenta, the pale ribs in the center of the pod, and that the seeds are not a source of heat. So scrape the white ribs out of the Fresno for a medium sauce and leave them in for a hot one (our chilli jam uses the same trick).

The cooling side of the burger is built in. Capsaicin dissolves in fat and not in water, which is why a glass of water barely helps. Researchers at Penn State found skim milk cut the burn about as well as whole milk, which points to milk's proteins as much as its fat. The white cheddar and the mayo put both on the same bite as the chile, so if the burger runs too hot, add more hot mayo rather than less hellfire sauce. For a milder crowd, swap the sriracha in the mayo for a spoonful of the jam.

What to Serve With a Hellfire Chicken Burger

Serve the Hellfire chicken burger with something cold and crunchy to set against the heat. A sharp, crisp coleslaw is the best match, and fries pick up any sauce that drips out. If you want to keep the Hellfire theme going, make a batch of sticky spicy chicken wings alongside. For the beef side of the menu, start with our Gordon Ramsay burger breakdown.

Gordon Ramsay's Hellfire Chicken Burger

A grilled ground chicken patty cooked to 165°F, topped with melted white cheddar, crispy bacon and tomato-bacon jam, on butter lettuce with hot mayo and a tangy chile hellfire sauce.

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Prep Time 25 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Servings 4 burgers

Calories 820 kcal

Ingredients

  

Tomato-Bacon Jam

• 2 strips bacon, chopped
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes (about 10 oz), halved
• 3 Tbsp light brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Hellfire Sauce

• 1/4 cup cayenne pepper hot sauce
• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 red Fresno chile, finely minced (ribs scraped out for medium heat)
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Hot Mayo

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 to 2 Tbsp sriracha, to taste
• 1 tsp lime juice

Burgers

• 1 1/2 lb ground chicken (not 99% lean if you can find it)
• 1/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 1 garlic clove, finely grated
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp kosher salt, plus black pepper (for the outside of the patties)
• 1 Tbsp grapeseed or other neutral oil
• 4 slices white cheddar
• 8 strips bacon, cooked crisp
• 4 burger buns, toasted
• 4 butter lettuce leaves

Instructions

 

• Make the jam: cook the chopped bacon in a small pan over medium heat until crisp and the fat has rendered. Add the onion and cook 5 minutes until soft. Add the tomatoes, brown sugar, vinegar and pepper flakes and simmer, stirring now and then, 20 to 25 minutes until thick and jammy. Cool.
• Make the hellfire sauce: stir the hot sauce, vinegar, honey, minced chile and smoked paprika together. Let it stand 10 minutes. Make the hot mayo by stirring the mayonnaise with the sriracha and lime juice.
• Gently mix the ground chicken with the panko, garlic and smoked paprika just until combined. With damp hands, shape 4 patties about 3/4 inch thick. Chill 30 minutes. Wash your hands and anything the raw chicken touched.
• Cook the 8 strips of bacon for the burgers until crisp and drain them on paper towels.
• Heat a grill or ridged grill pan over medium-high heat. Pat the patties dry, brush them with the oil and season the outsides with salt and pepper.
• Grill 5 to 6 minutes per side without moving them until they release, until an instant-read thermometer reads 165°F in the center. Add the cheddar in the last minute and cover to melt. Rest 3 minutes on a clean plate.
• Toast the buns. Spread hot mayo on the bottom buns, add a lettuce leaf, the patty, 2 strips of bacon and a spoonful of jam. Drizzle with hellfire sauce and add the top bun.

Notes

Cook ground chicken to 165°F, measured in the center; color is not a reliable test. For less heat, scrape the white ribs out of the Fresno chile and go light on the sriracha. The jam keeps up to a week in the fridge. For a pounded-breast version, butterfly 2 chicken breasts, pound them to an even 1/2 inch, halve them and grill 3 to 4 minutes per side to 165°F.

More from the burger menu: Gordon Ramsay signature burgers, the Hell's Kitchen Burger, the Gordon Ramsay burger breakdown and how to melt cheese on a burger. Browse every recipe.

Hellfire Chicken Burger FAQs

The questions that come up most: what temperature a ground chicken burger needs, whether it can be a little pink, how to keep the patties from falling apart, how long to grill them, how spicy the burger is, and how ground chicken compares to beef.