We Tried 7 Burgers From Culver's, And This Was The Absolute Best

Culver's is a popular Midwest-born chain from America's dairy capital of Wisconsin. For those unfamiliar with the chain, it's like a less expensive version of Shake Shack. Culver's keeps beef and dairy at the forefront of its menu, with burgers and frozen custard as the main sellers. With plenty of tasty melt–style sandwiches and burgers, Chowhound tried and ranked each Culver's burger from best to worst. According to our taste-tester, first place goes to the Culver's Deluxe, proving that simplicity can be a virtue in fast food.

The Culver's Deluxe is made with two "fresh, never frozen" smashed beef patties. It's topped with American cheese, raw red onion, tomato, pickles, shredded lettuce, and mayonnaise — stacked between two toasty, buttered buns. It's a quintessential cheeseburger if we've ever seen one. It outranks its ButterBurger brethren by having a balance of ingredients from the fresh, crunchy veggies to the buttery buns. The toppings aid the savory beef flavor rather than distract from it, so it's easy to see why even Andrew Zimmern can't get enough of Culver's.

Cheeseburgers are one of those foods you can see someone ordering in their pajama pants at midnight, but they're also part of many fine dining menus. Breweries, drive-thrus, and steakhouses alike can reckon that this classic dish brings in any sort of hungry customer. The test for success lies in who can make a simple burger shine. The Culver's Deluxe lets the quality and cooking technique of beef and the plain toppings speak for themselves. The lower-ranked beef sandwich items had too much going on, lacking balance (which is a real shame, considering there were also patty melts on the menu). We noticed a similar trend in our ranking of Wendy's burgers, where the Dave's Single ended up being the most impressive.

Culver's sources its beef from multiple American farmers to meet consumer demands, and in 2017, a company representative confirmed to the public that the restaurant does indeed partner with Wisconsin dairy farms. The burgers are made from a beef blend of sirloin, chuck, and plate cuts. The raw meat is shaped into balls and then flattened with a spatula to achieve the smash burger effect, sizzling on a griddle where the patties can absorb each other's juices. You can expect all of this effort and more to come through in the Culver's Deluxe.