TGI Friday’s Inspired Jack Daniel’s Bacon Cheeseburger

4
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Juicy burgers topped with copycat TGI Fridays Jack Daniels Sauce. The sauce is a perfect topper or dipping sauce for ribs, chicken, or shrimp too!

Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?I think TGI Friday’s is a restaurant we all have memories of as young adults. You probably had a date there, or watched games at the bar there. I went off to college and my friends introduced me to the world of TGI Friday’s, the only restaurant that would serve us alcoholic Cookies and Cream shakes when we were freshman. Looking back it is hard to believe I got all the way to college before discovering it, especially since it became a second home for our group of friends in pretty short order. Every time we went I would order something from the Jack Daniel’s menu. The sauce is sticky and sweet, but still a bit spicy. It works so well on ribs, chicken and shrimp but as a broke college kid, you have to go with the burger. Ten dollars instead of the twenty dollar ribs, it still had many of the same flavors. That sauce was addicting, we would dip everything in it. So as summer rolled around, and as many parents of small children can relate to, I wanted to recreate that meal at home instead of going out to get it.

Turns out the sauce is a huge hit on the internet and many copycat recipes exist. I tried 3 of them before deciding this one was the way to go. The sauce couldn’t really be any easier. Put the ingredients in a saucepan for 20 minutes on medium heat and you’re ready to go.Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?It all happens as we are making the burger anyway. I always use fresh ground chuck from my butcher and season liberally on both sides with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. Then I cook it in a cast iron skillet. To be honest, I cook anything and everything I can in my cast iron cookware I love it so much.Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?Next cook up some bacon.Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?I made the burgers with homemade Hawaiian buns (recipe coming soon) then added the burger and some sharp cheddar cheese (I’m a sucker for a sharp cheddar).Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?Then I topped it with the glorious sauce. That dippy, sticky, spicy and sweet sauce.Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?Not sure there is anything left to say. Talking pretty much stopped once our mouths were full of burgers.

Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?

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TGIFridays Inspired Jack Daniel's Bacon Cheeseburger

TGI Friday's Inspired Jack Daniels Sauce that is a perfect topper for ribs, chicken, shrimp or burgers. Also works great as a dipping sauce
Yield 4
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Sauce
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 1/3 pound thick bacon
  • 4 thick slices of sharp cheddar cheese
  • 4 Hawaiian Buns (white or wheat are fine too)
  • 1 1/3 pound fresh ground chuck
  • kosher salt
  • fresh cracked black pepper

Sauce Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon onion powder
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon Tabasco sauce
  • 1 cup pineapple juice
  • 1/2 cup Jack Daniels
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 2 tsp Better than Bouillon Beef Base (you can also use two beef bouillon cubes)
  • 4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

  • Put all the sauce ingredients into a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and stays in place if you run your finger through it, about 20 minutes.
  • Shape the ground beef into patties weighing about ⅓ of a pound each.
  • Season liberally with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
  • Cook in a cast iron skillet, on high, 4 minutes on each side.
  • Assemble burger and eat!

Notes

Recipe from Food.com

Nutrition

Calories: 1185kcal | Carbohydrates: 137g | Protein: 34g | Fat: 47g | Saturated Fat: 17g | Cholesterol: 143mg | Sodium: 968mg | Potassium: 883mg | Sugar: 118g | Vitamin A: 25IU | Vitamin C: 11mg | Calcium: 158mg | Iron: 5.1mg
Keyword: burger, cheeseburger, copycat recipe, TGI Friday's Inspired Jack Daniels Bacon Cheeseburger

Jack Daniel's sticky, sweet & spicy sauce on a delicious bacon cheeseburger. Can it get any better?

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Wow – that sauce is amazing!! My son raves about TGI’s JD sauce, can’t wait to find out what he thinks of it. Its delicious!! I did adapt it slightly and used less garlic and onion powder, I also used a famous yeast extract spread instead of beef as my guests don’t eat beef.

  2. I can not wait to try this! I’m still using your recipe for the Copycat Panda Express Honey Walnut Shrimp, so I know this one will be a hit too! You do not disappoint, so glad I’m an email subscriber. Thanks for sharing can’t wait to see what’s next.

  3. Way too much Jack Daniel’s. Didnt taste like the Restauran’ts version at all in my opinion. Myself and 3 other people only liked it after the taste was diluted from putting it on the burger (and only in a small amount). But tasting it separately, all 4 of us agreed, it was very over powering and strong. There was also a bit of grittiness. My guess it had too much brown sugar and not enough liquids to dissolve in. Looks great in picture but this nothing like the original in my opinion.

  4. Looks so yummy! But I’m wondering, can you use Jack Daniel’s Honey Whiskey with the same recipe or would I need to tweak it?

    1. Thanks! You should be able to use the honey whiskey without any other changes to the recipe. The whiskey cooks down enough that the flavor difference should be minimal.

  5. This recipe has been chosen to be part of our Burgers, Sliders, and Dogs Recipe Roundup – we hope you will help us spread the word by sharing, pinning, and tweeting! All links go directly to your recipes and we hope you get lots of traffic! Kelli and Holli at Yum Goggle

  6. So that sauce dripping off the side isn’t even fair. Mouth watering goodness!

  7. Definitely pinning this to make this summer. It looks SOOOO good, I kinda want one right now!

  8. This looks so delicious! I love a good burger recipe. I will have to try this on the weekend for my BBQ.

  9. Everything is better with bacon, right? I love this time of year. It’s the perfect time for grilling and serving up burgers with family and friends.

  10. Oh man. This looks amazing. I haven’t had a nice juicy burger in so long. This makes me need one asap! It looks amazing!

  11. My husband is a huge fan of bacon cheddar cheeseburgers. We don’t eat at TGIFridays often because its a bit of a drive from home. This would solve that!

    1. Awesome! We have a Friday’s close to our house, I just can’t muster the energy to go out to it with the young kids!

  12. I haven’t been to TGI Fridays in ages but I always loved that jack daniels sauce! I totally want to try this!

  13. That burger looks like it is literally dripping with goodness! I love TGIFridays I havent been in a while but this looks great!

  14. The Jack Daniel’s sauce is so good! I like to dip my french fries in the sauce. This is a delicious meal!

  15. I just can’t take it….This burger is so beyond irresistible! The flavors sound like perfection. It is the most alluring burger I think I’ve ever seen. Fantastic.

  16. That ultra thick patty and Jack sauce looks outstanding. Nothing in the world trumps a good burger for me!

  17. I’ve made a similar sauce and it’s divine; I’ve now got a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s Honey Whiskey on the counter; thinking I might have to try it with that. I can’t tell you how much I am dying for a hamburger right now. DYING!!

  18. OH I am SO excited to try this! I LOVE the Jack Daniel’s line at TGIFridays! I think I will make this for my dad for Father’s Day because he loves it too!

  19. This looks so perfect. I’d love to make a few of these the next time we’re out grilling. We do like the TGIF burgers.

  20. That burger looks thick and juicy, just how I like them! What a deliciously inspired burger for the season!

  21. wow – that burger is huge! My bourbon loving husband would really get a kick out of all those flavors merging. I can see him ordering this off a menu.

  22. I tell people homemade burgers are the best, and I bet I could definitely convince them with this recipe! Amazing! Keep up the great work!

  23. I used to love going to TGIFridays!! There’s not one close by now or I probably still would. This burger looks out of this world. I could use a bite right now!!

    1. I wish it was easier to go out more to dinner. Young kids inspire me to cook because going out is such a production!

  24. I want to try this SOO bad! This looks good from just looking at the picture! Thank you for sharing this recipe! I M Dying to try it!

    1. Thanks! Having just had the last one for lunch just now, I can tell you that you should totally make it! The sauce is done in no time, so most of your time will be spent figuring out more things to put it on! ha.

  25. Holy moly! That’s one of the best copy cat recipes I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t wait to try this.