hamburger helper

hamburger helper is the alternative letter-case form of Hamburger Helper.

Proper noun capitalized: Hamburger Helper

Hamburger Helper

(US) A boxed, one-pot meal product consisting of dried pasta, rice, or potatoes and a packet of powdered seasonings; to prepare it, home cooks combine the dry ingredients with browned ground beef ("hamburger") and water or milk.

Hamburger Helper (uncountable)

Any quick, one-pan meal made by combining ground beef, a starch (like pasta or rice), and a seasoned sauce; applies to generic store-brand versions or recipes made completely from scratch.
- “I ordered lumber for a new one,” Hopper told her while she handed him a bowl of last night’s reheated hamburger helper.2016, Crystal Kei, We're Gonna Have to Hide the Body
- It’s a good opportunity to try new dishes, and Bill is very appreciative of some real food in the apartment that isn’t a microwaveable meal or hamburger helper.2019, cheekaspbrak, Run While You Still Can
(broadly, figuratively) Anything that extends, enhances, or bulks up a limited resource.
- Barter is basically a marketing tool. It is the "hamburger helper" of business. It stretches cash while bringing in new customers [...]1995 November, Canada Computer Paper Inc., The Computer Paper, page 43
- In many cases the diminished seventh chord is the in-between, the hamburger helper of ascending harmonic movement.2003, Alan de Mause, Mel Bay's Complete Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar Book, page 120

hamburger + helper; a genericized trademark; introduced nationally by General Mills' Betty Crocker brand in 1971.

What does hamburger helper mean?: Hamburger helper means a boxed, one-pot meal product consisting of dried pasta, rice, or potatoes and a packet of powdered seasonings; to prepare it, home cooks combine the dry ingredients with browned ground beef ("hamburger") and water or milk.
What is hamburger helper the alternative letter-case form of?: Hamburger helper is the alternative letter-case form of Hamburger Helper.
What part of speech is hamburger helper?: Hamburger helper can be a proper noun or a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: hamburger helper (page history and authors); Hamburger Helper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “hamburger helper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hamburger_helper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.