Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers

This Post Contains Affiliate Links. Click Here To Read Our Full Disclosure.

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers. How to cook frozen hamburgers in the instant pot. Including not only how to cook your favourite frozen burgers, but also how to cook fried onions at the same time, use the air fryer lid for melted cheese and what to serve with your delicious frozen instant pot hamburger.

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers
Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers

I LOVE instant pot frozen hamburgers as it feels like they tick so many boxes when making lunch or dinner in the instant pot pressure cooker.

You can choose the quality of your hamburgers. They can be the cheap supermarket frozen ones, fresh ones that you have bought from the supermarket and placed in the freezer for later.

Or my personal favourite is the Butcher Box grass fed burgers that are perfect if you follow a healthy diet.

Frozen instant pot hamburgers are truly magical for instant pot camping food. If you live in an RV or are camping in a tent or just taking your instant pot to a hotel room, then these frozen hamburgers are ideal.

Or if you want to make ahead you can make them in the silver foil, freeze them and then they will still be cool later when you reach your road trip destination.

Because the instant pot frozen hamburger patties are cooked inside of silver foil packets the washing up is minimal.

The onions cook in the bottom of the instant pot in a broth and because this isn’t a sticky sauce, it’s a quick rinse clean to get your instant pot ready for the next time you use it.

Even better, because the frozen hamburgers are added in foil and are easy to make, means that they are perfect instant pot food for the kids to get involved with.

Here are Sofia & Jorge getting the frozen hamburgers ready for the instant pot:

instant pot frozen hamburgers with the kids

Note that if you break up silver foil sheets, give them the packs of the frozen burgers and the seasoning, they will proudly make them for you.

Though the favourite benefit of these frozen hamburgers in the Milner house is being able to have a fakeaway at home.

That time when you have a craving for fast food, grab some frozen hamburgers from the freezer, along with frozen hamburger buns, chop an onion and you are all set.

Can You Cook Frozen Hamburger Patties In Instant Pot?

Yes you can! Frozen hamburger patties in the instant pot are delicious and come out incredibly tender and you would think it was a much more expensive cut of meat, when you try them.

Just think of those amazing burgers you have gone out to eat in restaurants and this is what you can achieve when you cook frozen hamburger patties in the instant pot.

Thaw Frozen Hamburger In Instant Pot?

When you cook frozen hamburgers in the instant pot it will cook them from frozen much better than from thawed.

Therefore, there is absolutely no need to thaw your hamburgers prior to cooking them.

As the frozen hamburgers go to pressure in the instant pot, the pressure cooker will naturally defrost your hamburgers.

It also helps keep your hamburgers in the correct shape compared to when you cook already defrosted burgers.

Instant Pot Frozen Burgers In Foil

The Instant Pot is perfect for cooking food in foil especially food that you would traditionally associate with the barbecue or camping foil packet meals.

You place your trivet into the instant pot, add the foil packet food onto the trivet and then it pressure cooks.

Regardless of what the food is that you pressure cooked, you can serve it in the foils if you are camping or load the food onto the plate.

But the reasoning behind foil packet burgers in the instant pot, is to keep the food together and to stop the burgers from falling apart.

It is also perfect for keeping the seasoning on the food and the wonderful burger flavour.

How To Cook Frozen Hamburger In Instant Pot?

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers step by step

Cooking your favourite frozen hamburger in the instant pot is so EASY. I love teaching my young kids how to cook and used it as an opportunity to teach them about homemade burgers.

They seasoned the burgers, loaded them into the foil packets and got excited when the instant pot beeped to tell them that they had yummy frozen burgers to eat.

Here are the few steps that make up frozen hamburger patties in the instant pot:

  1. Peel and slice an onion and load into the bottom of the instant pot with a little olive oil.
  2. Sauté the onion and then turn off the sauté function and add water to the onions and mix to make sure your instant pot has been deglazed.
  3. Add the trivet over the onion.
  4. Place frozen hamburgers into silver foil with a little seasoning and seal up.
  5. Load the foil packets onto the trivet and place the lid onto the instant pot.
  6. Cook for 20 minutes and manually release pressure.
  7. You now have delicious moist burgers!

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburger + Air Fryer Crisplid

Melting cheese with the air fryer crisplid

Once you have your cooked burgers you can eat them as they are or take it a step further thanks to the use of the air fryer crisplid.

Here is the one we have, and it sits on the instant pot as a replacement lid and does an amazing job of melting cheese.

  1. Remove the hamburgers from the instant pot and replace the trivet with a tall trivet.
  2. Place the crisplid basket on top of the trivet and add your just cooked hamburgers. Add a layer of cheese and place the crisplid on.
  3. Cook for 2 minutes at 240c/460f add onions and its ready for the burgers to be added to burger buns.

If needed, you can also place frozen hamburger buns onto the same trivet and use the same temperature to warm and crisp them from frozen.

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburger Cook Time

The cook time for instant pot frozen hamburger patties is JUST 20 minutes. This of course doesn’t include the time for the instant pot to go to pressure. Or the extra 2 minutes for melting cheese using your Air Fryer Lid.

instant pot bucket list featured in

Browning Frozen Hamburger In Instant Pot

If you would like to brown your frozen hamburgers in the instant pot, you need to add an extra cooking stage to your burgers.

Instead before chopping the onion, sauté your burgers first in a little olive oil and oregano. Then load them into your silver foil packets.

It will give a lovely crispy texture to your frozen hamburger patties once cooked.

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers
Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers
Print Recipe
4.80 from 5 votes

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers. How to cook frozen hamburgers in the instant pot. Including not only how to cook your favourite frozen burgers, but also how to cook fried onions at the same time, use the air fryer lid for melted cheese and what to serve with your delicious frozen instant pot hamburger.
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time25 minutes
Total Time30 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Instant Pot
Servings: 8
Calories: 437kcal

Ingredients

Instant Pot Hamburger Recipe Ingredients:

Instructions

  • Peel and slice your onion and load into the instant pot. Add extra virgin olive oil and sauté for about 3 minutes or until your onion has softened.
  • Cancel the sauté.
  • Add a cup of water into the instant pot and stir the water with the onions.
  • Add the trivet over the onions.
  • Using silver foil add to each piece of silver foil a frozen hamburger, and a sprinkle of oregano, salt and pepper. Seal each silver foil packet and load the silver foil burger packets on top of the trivet.
  • Place the lid on the instant pot, set the valve to sealing and cook for 20 minutes on manual pressure cook.
  • Manually release pressure and remove the trivet and the silver foil hamburgers.
  • Add the tall trivet and the air fryer crisp lid basket.
  • Load the burgers onto the trivet, add a slice of cheese and some onions and cook for 2 minutes at 240c/460f.
  • Serve with salad garnish.

Video

Notes

If you don’t have an air fryer crisplid, this is the one we recommend.
You can also add the hamburger buns and let the air fryer crisplid cook these too. They come out wonderfully crispy and it saves waiting for them to defrost.
For silver foil I recommend it to be triple the size of your frozen hamburger. As you want to be able to have some padding on it and for it to tightly wrap.
This frozen hamburger instant pot recipe is for 8 burgers. You can adjust it down to 4 or increase it to 10, while keeping the same cooking time.

Nutrition

Calories: 437kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 25g | Fat: 27g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Cholesterol: 78mg | Sodium: 405mg | Potassium: 385mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 170IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 210mg | Iron: 4mg
Nutrition InfoPlease Note: Nutrition values are our best estimate based on the software we use at Recipe This and are meant as a guide. If you rely on them for your diet, use your preferred nutrition calculator.
Have You Tried The Instant Pot Mini Course?Its FREE and its delivered by email over 5 days. Ideal for beginners to the instant pot Click Here.
Are We Friends On Pinterest?If we are not and you use Pinterest then follow us @RecipeThisBlog for more delicious recipes.
Fancy A Video?Subscribe to the Recipe This YouTube Channel for full length recipe videos. Don’t forget to click the bell icon to be notified when we upload a new video. Subscribe Here!
Copyright Notice© RecipeThis.com. ALL content including photos are copyright protected. Sharing of our recipes is both encouraged and appreciated via the social share buttons. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media channel or onto your own website is strictly prohibited.

Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!

Instant Pot Frozen Hamburger recipe

Join The RecipeThis.com Community:

Facebook Group | Pinterest | TwitterYouTube 

Plus, don’t forget to subscribe below to join our email newsletter with updates of our latest recipes, latest freebies, our cooking stories, plus much more:

Recipe This

Hi! I am Sam and along with my chef hubby Dom we love sharing with you easy everyday recipes using kitchen gadgets. We are also the authors of The Complete Air Fryer Cookbook, an amazing air fryer cookbook filled with 140+ everyday air fryer recipes. Beyond the air fryer we also love the instant pot, slow cooker, soup maker, ninja foodi, pie marker and several other kitchen gadgets. CLICKING HERE →

21 thoughts on “Instant Pot Frozen Hamburgers”

  1. 5 stars
    Mind blown. I just can not believe how delicious hamburgers taste cooked from frozen in the instant pot. I just need a mealthy crisp lid now for the melted cheese.

    Reply
  2. 5 stars
    This was delicious! I made it for lunch today and my husband told me he could eat this every day. It will probably become one of my go-to recipes this summer. Thanks!

    Reply
  3. My wife despises onions so we skipped that part. Cooked 6 frozen burgers for 20 minutes and they were raw. We needed 8 more minutes to get them cooked. Any idea why?

    Reply
    • Hi Mike,

      My son hates onions too so you are not alone.

      The onions wont make any difference to the cook time because the onion method would take the instant pot to pressure quicker.

      My thought as to why yours were not cooked is that your burgers might have been bigger or if your burgers were thicker it would need a longer cook time. Just like if you cooked chicken breasts a small would not take as long as an XL.

      Our burger size are similar to the small patties you would find in a Big Mac at Mcdonalds.

      If your burgers are much thicker i would recommend 30 minutes rather than 20 mins.

      kind regards

      sam
      X

      Reply
    • Hi Chuck

      Yes it is recommended. Becasuse it keeps the flavour on the hamburgers and if you just place them on the trivet they can become dry 🙂

      Reply
  4. what do the onions due as it seems to me they cant soak any of the flavor or aromatics if the patties are wrapped and seasoned?..is it for putting on the burger after cooking?, or would they be mush after pressure cooking?

    Reply
  5. Can I use parchment paper instead of foil? I’ve seen other recipes for fresh, room temperature burgers that can use parchment. I’m wondering if that’s suitable for frozen patties too?

    Reply
    • Hello Sarah

      Yes parchment should fine as long as it stays closed, this is why we use foil as we found it easier to close and stay closed whilst under pressure 🙂

      Reply
  6. 4 stars
    Loved the frozen burgers. The onions on the bottom not so much. Will make again but without the mushy onions at the bottom in the water. The hamburgers were cooked all the way through. Not sure you can gage the “doneness” in the instant pot, we like them to have some pink in the center and these were cooked all the way through. Juicy as all get out.

    Reply
    • Hi Julie,

      We always do all of our recipes on high pressure, if it is any different we always say in the recipe. So just follow the instructions and your burgers should turn out fine 🙂

      Reply
  7. I started to cook mine on 30 minutes as they are thicker 1/3 burgers as I noted to do in the previous Comments. We skipped the onion because I don’t have the thing to put on top to burgers above. I just got the burn food on the display. I quick released and took them out nothing looks burnt on bottom. Should I had water to the bottom and placed burgers in foil back in?
    I’m brand new to the instant pot.

    Reply
    • Hi Alyssa,

      Yes put about 200ml of water into the bottom of the instant pot and add the burgers back in. I am not sure why it said the food would be burnt if it had water in it to start with 🙂

      Reply
  8. 5 stars
    The hamburgers were so good! I had big hamburgers so I went with 30 minutes cook time. The biggest problem I had was the cheese kept flying off when I put them under the air fryer lol!

    Reply
    • Hi Kristi,

      Happy your burgers turned out, for the cheese if you are using slices we put a cocktail stick in it and snap it half way down and the cheese will not fly of 😉 also if you want melted cheese you can put some grated in a pot and when melted pour over the burgers 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply to RecipeThis.com Cancel reply

Recipe Rating