He was the eldest son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen and Countess Sophie Henriette of Waldeck.

During his youth he served on the Netherlands in the imperial military army, during which he was wounded in the Spanish Succession War at Höchstädt; in 1715 he left the Army after the death of his father, and assumed the government of the duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

He wanted, like many German princes, to repeat the splendor of the court of the King Louis XIV of France in his own duchy; but this was the cause of his financial ruin.

The county was sold in 1720 to the General States, not for the repayment of the debts but to build in his palace a garden connected with a channel.

In Erbach on 4 February 1704, Ernest Frederick married Countess Sophia Albertine of Erbach-Erbach.