A cheeseburger is a hamburger with a slice of melted cheese on top of the meat patty, added near the end of the cooking time.

As with other hamburgers, a cheeseburger may include various condiments and other toppings such as lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, avocado, mushrooms, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard.

He was working as a fry cook at his father's Pasadena, California, sandwich shop, "The Rite Spot", and "experimentally dropped a slab of American cheese on a sizzling hamburger.

[13][14][15] Dale Mulder, the owner of an A&W Restaurants franchise in Lansing, Michigan, has been credited with inventing the bacon cheeseburger in 1963, putting it on the menu after repeated requests from the same customer.

[21] The ingredients used to create cheeseburgers follow similar patterns found in the regional variations of hamburgers, although most start with ground beef.

A cheeseburger may have more than one patty or more than one slice of cheese—it is reasonably common, but by no means automatic, for the number to increase at the same rate with cheese and meat interleaved.