The Great Topping Throwdown: 51 Contenders, One Burger Throne
Photo: gourmet burger toppings assortment bacon kimchi cheese overhead, via i.pinimg.com
We're called Burger 51. So at some point, we were legally obligated to rank exactly 51 burger toppings. That day has come.
We built a bracket. Sixty-four slots were too many; thirty-two felt disrespectful to the humble bread-and-butter pickle. Fifty-one — one topping for every burger worth arguing about — felt right. Then we matched them up, imagined each battle on a real patty, and let the crumbs fall where they may.
Grab a napkin. This gets messy.
The Play-In Round: Where Dreams Get Soggy
Every tournament needs heartbreak, and ours started immediately. Iceberg lettuce drew raw red onion in the play-in game — a clash of crunch titans that ended with the onion advancing on sheer intensity. Iceberg, we love you, but you're 96% water and it showed.
Other early casualties: sliced cucumber (too spa-like), cottage cheese (a crime in several states), and the much-hyped truffle oil, which lost to plain old mayo in an upset that honestly shouldn't be an upset. Mayo shows up every single time. Truffle oil shows up when it wants to be photographed.
The Regionals: Classics vs. Chaos
Our bracket had four regions, and each developed a personality fast.
The Classics Region played fundamental basketball. Tomato handled business. American cheese — yes, it counts as a topping, fight us — steamrolled its way to the regional final before falling to bacon in a game that came down to the last bite. Bacon's smoke-and-fat combination is simply undefeated when it's cooked right. When it's not, that's another article.
The Crunch Region was a war of textures. Fried pickles brined their way past tortilla strips, coleslaw, and potato chips before meeting onion rings in the regional final. The rings won on size advantage — you get a whole golden halo per bite, not a scattering of specks.
The Sweet Heat Region was chaos basketball. Hot honey — the tournament's darling — drained threes over pineapple, fig jam, and maple-glazed bacon. Jalapeños grinded out wins with pure defense. In the regional final, hot honey's sweet-spicy attack proved too much, and the peppers went home salty in every sense.
The Funk Region belonged to the fermented and the bold. Kimchi dominated. Blue cheese squeaked by goat cheese in a battle of strong opinions. Sauerkraut, pickled jalapeños, and giardiniera all landed punches before kimchi's garlic-chile punch knocked them out one by one.
The Final Four: Bacon, Onion Rings, Hot Honey, Kimchi
Now it got serious.
Bacon vs. Onion Rings was a texture clinic, but bacon's fat renders into the patty itself — it doesn't just sit on the burger, it becomes the burger. Final score: bacon by a touchdown.
Hot Honey vs. Kimchi was the game of the tournament. Sweet heat against funky heat. Vinegar crunch against liquid gold. In the end, kimchi's acidity cut through the beef fat in a way honey can't, and the bracket's favorite went home stunned.
The Championship: Bacon vs. Kimchi
Smoke and salt versus garlic and chile. The establishment versus the upstart. On a smash burger with American cheese and a toasted potato bun, we ran the matchup six times. Bacon won four.
Why? Consistency. Kimchi is spectacular when it works — a revelation, even. But bacon works on every burger, at every joint, at every hour. It's the topping you build a diner around. It earned the throne.
The Full Elite Eight, for Your Argument Purposes
- Bacon
- Kimchi
- Hot Honey
- Onion Rings
- American Cheese
- Fried Pickles
- Caramelized Onions
- Fried Egg
Yes, fried egg made a surprise Elite Eight run before a yolk-break fumble ended it. Yes, we're still hearing about it.
Cast Your Ballot
Here's the thing about brackets: ours is just the seed. Yours is the real tournament. Did pepper jack get robbed? Should avocado have made it past the Sweet Sixteen? Is there a place in your heart — or your bracket — for peanut butter on a burger?
Drop your Final Four in the comments, tag your burger buddy who'll disagree with all of it, and settle it the only way that matters: grill up both sides of the matchup, stack them on real patties, and taste-test the whole thing yourself.
Fifty-one toppings. One crown. And next March, we run it back with new seeds — because in this tournament, the only thing better than a great burger is arguing about one.
