Lighter Animal-Style Burgers | Lite Cravings | WW Recipes (2024)

Recreate the In-N-Out experience at home with these Lighter Animal-Style Burgers. Incredible burgers lightened up just enough!

Southern California is known for many things: beautiful beaches, pristine weather, Hollywood, Disneyland. But nearly every time I meet someone who isn’t from here, the first thing they ask me about is In-N-Out. The fast food burger chain is almost mythical to those who aren’t on the West Coast.

If you’ve read my post about Skinny Special Sauce, then you know that I spent a lot of my teenage years at In-N-Out. It was the local high school hang out, mainly because a lot of our friends worked there, but also because it was (and still is) affordable.

Now, if I’m being honest, I do think In-N-Out burgers are a little overrated. The fries are pretty awful, and the burger patties themselves are a little anemic.

What makes their burgers stand out from the rest is the fresh ingredients, the unique way they cook their burgers, and the toppings. All of this can be recreated at home, but with a heftier burger patty, less grease, and plenty of leftovers.

Not to mention that a regular Animal-Style cheeseburger will cost you 19 SP. My version is only 8 SP! Dare I say that homemade Lighter Animal-Style Burgers are even better than the original??

What is “Animal-Style”?

Let’s talk about what “Animal-Style” means. Here is how In-N-Out differentiates:

• Extra Spread: all burgers come with special sauce, but they add more to the animal-style orders.
• Fried Mustard: when you ask for animal style or “mustard down,” they will cook your burger on the flat top with a thin layer of mustard cooked into one side. This adds a ton of flavor and juiciness to the meat.
• Pickles: a standard burger at In-N-Out doesn’t have pickles.
• Grilled Onions: they add sweet and melty onions instead of the raw onion that is served on their regular burgers.

MY ORDER: People swear by animal style. And while it’s pretty iconic, there are some things that I’m picky about. First, get the extra spread on the side. That way you can add more sauce if you want instead of risking a soggy burger. I’m also not a huge fan of their grilled onions. I like the crunchy bite of the raw onion. And there really is no need for pickles when you’re already getting some subtle pickle flavor from the spread. So, I order:

Cheeseburger, mustard down, no tomato. Extra spread on the side.

I personally don’t like tomato on my burgers no matter where I get it from, so that’s just standard for me.

Oh, and if you’re going to get their fries, ask for them well done. With cheese and grilled onion, extra spread on the side. Same concept about sogginess–you can add as much spread as you want to your fries this way.

How do you Make Lighter Animal-Style burgers?

The real secret to a fabulous Animal-Style burger is the Skinny Special Sauce. You can read my rant about how special sauce > thousand island in that blog post.

We will most definitely use the “fried” mustard technique, but we’ll use 94/6 ground beef to keep it lean. The mustard locks in moisture, so the burger still ends up tender even though it’s leaner.

In-N-Out patties are also pretty thin, so we’ll form our patties as thin as we can before seasoning the outside. They’ll shrink up as they cook, so try to get them as thin as possible without falling apart.

Even though I don’t prefer the grilled onions, I’ll show you a way to make caramelized onions without any oil or extra fat. 0 SmartPoints and minimal calories.

Actually, we’re just going to use Kenji’s technique of adding water a little at a time, minus the oil. It’s perfect that way and takes just about 10 minutes to get perfectly browned and soft onions.

Now were ready to get make your In-N-Out dreams come true at home!

I’d love to hear from you if you make this recipe! It makes my day when you share your pics on Instagram and tag me (@litecravings). Don’t forget to use #litecravingsrecipes to make sure I see it. If I don’t get a chance to scroll through my tags quickly enough, I won’t see your post. I always make a point to look through the hashtags, though, so I’ll see it there!