This is a copycat version of the Teriyaki Burger that you can buy at McDonald’s in Japan. The patty is dunked in a thick teriyaki sauce and topped with lettuce pieces, and lemon mayonnaise. It doesn’t have anything else between the sliced bun, but it tastes so good.
McDonald’s has outlets all over the world and each country has its specialty burgers with the flavour or appearance representing the country’s famous food. In Japan Teriyaki Burger is the one.
‘Teriyaki’ (照り焼き) is a cooking technique – grilling/broiling food with a sweet soy-flavoured sauce (teriyaki sauce). Everyone in the world who has had some exposure to Japanese food knows the word ‘teriyaki’ , and the dish cooked with teriyaki sauce is usually called teriyaki something such as Teriyaki Chicken and Teriyaki Salmon.
Traditional Teriyaki Sauce and Westernised Teriyaki Sauce
Traditional teriyaki sauce consists of just soy sauce, mirin, and cooking sake with/without sugar. The proportion of each ingredient varies household by household, but it is such a simple sauce.
However, as teriyaki sauce became popular among people outside Japan and the Japanese people sought variations to the traditional teriyaki sauce flavour, different ingredients were added to the basic sauce to give different flavours to the original version.
Adding ginger and/or garlic to the basic teriyaki sauce is the most common variation to the traditional sauce.
Given that McDonald’s burgers are American food, it makes more sense to use the Westernised version of the teriyaki sauce.
What’s in my Copycat McDonald’s Teriyaki Burger
My McDonald’s Teriyaki Burger consists of a burger bun, pork patty, teriyaki sauce, lettuce, and lemon flavoured mayonnaise. Burger patties are usually made with beef mince/ground beef but when it comes to the Teriyaki Burger, you need to use pork mince/ground pork. I think that pork goes better with teriyaki sauce than beef.
Burger bun and lettuce:
- Burger bun of your choice – you can buy bread rolls sold as ‘burger buns’ but they are quite large so I used plain bread rolls for trial and brioche buns for the hero shots.
- Lettuce – I used iceberg lettuce leaves by tearing them into the size of the bun. Try to use the thin and soft part of the lettuce leaves (outer leaves with frills). Alternatively, you can use butter lettuce/bibb lettuce leaves.
Pork Patty:
- Pork mince/ground pork
- Finely chopped onion
- Egg
- Panko breadcrumbs soaked in milk
- Nutmeg and pepper
Teriyaki Sauce:
- Soy sauce
- Mirin
- Cooking sake
- Sugar
- Water
- Grated ginger
- Grated garlic
- Tomato sauce/ketchup
- Corn flour dissolved in water
You will find that the addition of ginger and garlic makes the teriyaki sauce taste quite different to the sauce used in my Teriyaki Chicken recipe.
Lemon Mayonnaise:
- Mayonnaise – I used Kewpie mayonnaise to make it authentic
- Cream – instead of cream, you can use milk
- Lemon juice
- Sugar
How to make my Copycat McDonald’s Teriyaki Burger
You will spend most of your time making the patties but there is nothing special about them. Unlike my Hamburg recipe, I don’t sauté the onion before mixing it with the other patty ingredients.
- Make Teriyaki Sauce.
- Make Lemon Mayonnaise.
- Mix the patty ingredients, shape into flat round patties.
- Cook the patties.
- Cut the burger buns in half and warm them.
- Dunk a patty in the Teriyaki Sauce and place it on the bottom half of the bun.
- Place lettuce pieces on the patty, drop lemon mayonnaise on them and put the top half of the bun on.
If you ever have made a hamburger, you will find that this is nothing much different from making other hamburgers. But the flavour is so different and so good.
The sweet soy flavour gives you the authenticity of Japanese food, while the punchy garlic and ginger flavour makes the teriyaki sauce a perfect flavour to go with the burger.
I strongly recommend making a Copycat McDonald’s Teriyaki Burger for a change.
Yumiko
This is a copycat version of the Teriyaki Burger that you can buy at McDonald’s in Japan. The patty is dunked in a thick teriyaki sauce, topped with lettuce pieces and lemon mayonnaise. It’s simple but very tasty!
Cook time assumes that patties are cooked in two batches.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 4 soft burger buns or brioche buns (note 1)
- 80g / 2.8oz lettuce leaves (note 2)
- 500g / 1.1lb pork mince/ground pork (note 3)
- ½ onion finely chopped (about 2/3 cup)
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
- 1½ tbsp milk
- 2 pinches of nutmeg powder
- 2 pinches of ground pepper
- 1 tbsp oil
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 tbsp cooking sake
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp water
- 2 tsp ginger grated
- 2 tsp garlic grated
- ½ tbsp tomato sauce/ketchup
- 2 tsp corn flour/cornstarch diluted in 1 tsp water
- 3 tbsp mayonnaise
- ½ tsp cream (or milk as an alternative)
- ¼ tsp lemon juice
- ⅛ tsp sugar
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Mix all the Lemon Mayonnaise ingredients in a small bowl.
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Add all the Teriyaki Sauce ingredients, excluding corn flour/cornstarch, to a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the corn flour/cornstarch and quickly mix. When the sauce starts boiling again and thickens, turn the heat off.
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Put all the Pork Patties ingredients except oil in a bowl. Mix well until the mixture becomes sticky.
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Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions and make flat round patties. The diameter of the patty should be slightly larger than the diameter of the bun (it shrinks when cooked).
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Heat a large frying pan with the oil over medium heat. Place the patties in the pan and cook for about 4 minutes (note 4).
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Turn them over and cook further 4 minutes or so until clear juice comes out of the patties. (note 5)
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Transfer the patties to a plate.
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While cooking patties, split buns and lightly toast them in the oven/broiler or on a skillet.
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Tear the lettuce leaves into smaller pieces (not too small, about the size of the bun).
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Place the bottom part of a bun on a sheet of baking paper.
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Dunk a pork patty in the Teriyaki Sauce, then place it on the bun. If you want, pour a small amount of teriyaki sauce on the patty.
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Place ¼ of the lettuce leaves on the patty, then spread ¼ of the Lemon Mayonnaise over the lettuce.
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Place the top half of the bun on. Repeat for the rest of the buns.
1. Any buns are OK. I tried with plain buns as well as brioche buns that did not have sesame seeds on the top.
To make the buns look like the McDonald’s bun with sesame seeds on it, I brushed the top of the bun with milk, sprinkle white sesame seeds on it and toasted it in the oven.
2. Japanese McDonald’s use iceberg lettuce so I used the same. But I personally think that butter lettuce/bibb lettuce would be easier to handle and might look better.
3. Teriyaki Sauce also goes well with chicken and you can use chicken mince/ground chicken if you want. But the chicken patty is not as juicy as the pork patty.
4. I cooked the patties in two batches as I could not fit all patties in my frying pan. Adjust the amount of oil when coking in batches.
5. Before you finish cooking, hold the patty with tongs and brown the side of the patty by rolling it. The patty looks more appetising without a whitish band around it on the side.
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
Even if the hamburger has a Japanese flavour, Teriyaki Burger is a Western dish. So, I picked dishes from my collections that are not traditional authentic Japanese dishes where possible.
I included Marinated Chicken Tenderloin as a nibble. You only need a couple of slices. Serve plenty of vegetable sticks to go with the 7-Eleven Dip.
I also added a sundae to make it a complete meal so that it becomes like a combination of foods at McDonald’s.
- Main: Copycat McDonald’s Teriyaki Burger – today’s recipe, pork patties and teriyaki sauce can be made ahead
- Side dish 1: Marinated Chicken Tenderloin – make ahead
- Side dish 2: Sweet and Sour Pickled Red Cabbage – make ahead, only a couple of slices
- Salad: 7-Eleven Miso Dip with Veggie Sticks – dip can be made ahead but it does not take long to make
- Dessert: Okinawan Sundae – or Sweet Red Bean Paste (Anko) on vanilla ice cream
This was absolutely delicious! I ended up making 6 patties since I like my burgers a little thinner. I will be making this recipe again. It was the perfect combination of sweet from the teriyaki and citrus from the lemon mayo.
Hi Jessica, I am glad that you enjoyed it! You are so right about the teriyaki sauce and the lemon mayo.
ソースは全然違う
Sauce so different color and taste. Then here in Japan.
Hi 美穂-san, I did not mean to re-make identical MaDonald’s burger. If that’s what you expected, sorry for making you disappointed. When I say copycat, it can look alike, tastes similar and/or the method is similar, etc.etc. Even if it’s different from the real Teriyaki Burger, I hope you liked it.
Absolutely delicious. Made these tonight for my family. They were a big hit, will definitely make again. Thank-you for sharing the recipe.
Hi Carla, great to hear that you and your family enjoyed it!
500 thumbs up! That’s the rating I got from my 6 year old for this recipe, so thank you.
Everyone else really liked it too, so it is one to add into our rotation.
Stupidly I thought I needed to coat the patties in the sauce, not just dunk and they were a little fragile, but lesson learned for next time.
Lemons are a bit expensive atm, so I used lime in the mayonnaise.
Definitely a keeper. Thank you Yumiko San.
Hi Claire, thank you so much! I am so happy for you to get 500 thumbs up from your son.
So interesting to learn about the cost comparison of lime and lemon. Where I live, lime is twice as expensive as lemon.
Hi Ms Yumiku! Im thinking of doing this recipe soon but may I ask if Mirin & Sake are a must
for the teriyaki sauce? I ever what can I subsitute for these 2 ingredients. Thank you.
Hi Liza, Sake can be substituted with dry sherry. Sweetness of mirin is 1/3 of sugar. Mirin can be replaced with 1/3 of sugar and the same amount of water (or combination of sake and water).
If you are asking about non-alcohol seasoning, there are non-alcohol mirin available:https://www.amazon.com/Honteri-Non-alcoholic-Mirin-Sweet-Seasoning/dp/B00IFW3X9A. You can use water in place of sake to eliminate alcohol but the sauce simply lacks the flavour. It might help if you use dashi stock instead.
Forgot to rate this recipe! My husband is still talking about his best burger….EVER!
Thanks for the 5 stars!
Hi Yumiko, my husband and I love everything Japanese, especially the food. But this burger has wowed us no end, it is absolutely delicious! I got my pork mince from the local Asian grocer, so was probably a lot fattier than normal mince, but I think this added to the flavour. Thank you so much for your amazing recipes
Hi Sue, I am so happy to hear that both of you liked Teriyaki burger. A strange combination but it certainly works.
I made this last night as written and we all loved it. Fantastic and unusual flavour in a burger and one we will definitely put on repeat. Thanks heaps for such a yummy recipe and also for your explanations on all the Japanese ingredients. It really helps.
Hi Jen, I am happy for you!
Thank you Yumiko, it looks delicious. We will certainly be cooking this one. It looks like a great one to have prepared and ready to go when the family come. 🌻
Hi Marea, yes, you can get the ingredients ready and simple assemble when serving.
THIS WAS SOOOOO GOOD!!! Happy to have photographed that to EAT IT afterwards!!
thanks for helping me, Nagi. The photos you took are really great.