How Much Beef Is In A Burger King Whopper?

A signature burger is one of the highlights of every fast food menu. Even culinary celebrities have their fast food favorites: Andrew Zimmern's favorite fast food burger is a Midwest classic and the late Anthony Bourdain preferred fast food burgers from a California-based chain. Each signature burger at every fast food chain has something that makes it unique, from special ingredients to unique names and everything in between.

One thing that isn't well-known about signature fast food burgers is exactly how big the patties are. Aside from burgers that share the amount in the name, like the McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese, the exact amount of beef in a burger isn't usually inherently obvious. When it comes to Burger King's Whopper, the name doesn't give away how much beef it has, but fortunately, the answer is quite simple: A Whopper has a quarter-pound beef patty.

A quarter-pound beef patty, which is equivalent to 4 ounces, is a standard size that many fast food burgers adhere to. Still, not all fast food burgers are created equal. Some fast food burgers will use smaller patties but will use more than one, which can come out to roughly the same amount of beef in the end.

Burger King's Whopper isn't the only major fast food burger to use quarter-pound beef patties. Wendy's uses a quarter-pound of beef on many of its burgers, including its single and triple stacked burgers. (It also uses a quarter-pound of beef on its double stack burgers, but in the form of two 2-ounce patties.)  Shake Shack and Whataburger also use quarter-pound beef patties.

In-N-Out has a slightly different approach; instead, it uses 2-ounce patties, which is equivalent to ⅛ pound. Depending on the burger, In-N-Out will use either 1 patty or 2, the latter of which will still bring the final amount of beef in that burger to a quarter of a pound.

Certain fast food chains do not adhere to the quarter-pound measurement at all. For example, Five Guys uses 3.3-ounce patties. Meanwhile, McDonald's beef patties can vary depending on the burger — while the Quarter Pounder with Cheese uses an approximately 4-ounce beef patty, the Double Cheeseburger uses two beef patties, each weighing 1.6 ounces.