Electric griddles for smash burgers

The honest answer first

You can make a good burger on an electric griddle. Getting a genuine lacy, deeply-browned smash-burger crust is hard, and the reason is physics rather than product quality.

We would rather say that than sell you a griddle for a job it struggles with.

Why 1500 watts fights you

A smash-burger crust requires two things from the surface: a high temperature, and fast recovery once a cold ball of beef is pressed flat against it.

That second one is the problem. The moment the patty lands, that patch of plate loses heat rapidly. If the heat source cannot put it back quickly, the patty sits in its own released moisture and steams — and steamed beef is gray, not brown.

1500 watts is about 5,100 BTU per hour equivalent. A gas griddle delivering 78 BTU per square inch has an order of magnitude more heat available to the area under the patty. That is the whole difference.

Getting the most out of an electric griddle

If an electric griddle is what you have, these genuinely help:

1. Preheat for far longer than feels necessary. Fifteen minutes at maximum. You are banking every joule the plate can hold, because recovery during the cook will be slow.
2. Cook two at a time, not six. Fewer cold patties means less total heat drawn out at once. This is the single most effective adjustment.
3. Wait between batches. Give the plate a couple of minutes to recover. Rushing the second batch is why it is worse than the first.
4. Make smaller, thinner patties. Less thermal load, more edge, faster browning relative to the mass.
5. Use almost no oil. Oil between beef and plate slows conduction and encourages frying rather than contact browning. On non-stick you need essentially none.
6. Press properly. Heavy, flat, once, ten seconds. Maximum contact is more important here than anywhere, because you have less heat to work with.
7. Use a dome for the cheese, since the patty will still finish before the cheese melts.

That will get you a solidly browned, juicy burger. It will not get you the lace.

The indoor route that actually works

A steel plate on a gas range.

It solves both halves of the problem at once. It inherits your range’s full burner output rather than being capped at an outlet, and a 3/8-inch plate has more thermal mass than any freestanding griddle cooktop in our guide — so the surface barely drops when the patty lands.

For indoor smash burgers specifically, this is not a compromise. It is arguably better than most outdoor griddles, because thickness is the one specification where it beats everything.

The requirements are a gas or electric coil range that can take 51–62 lb, and serious extraction — this cook makes a lot of smoke.

If you are buying for burgers

Have a yard? Buy a gas griddle with high heat density. Nothing indoors matches it for convenience plus capability.

No yard, gas range? Buy a steel plate. It is the best indoor answer.

No yard, no gas range? An electric griddle, with realistic expectations and the technique above. A good burger is a perfectly good outcome.

The full technique guide applies on any surface.