Let’s face it, grilled burgers are better than pan-fried, but who wants to grill outside in the cold winter? I know I can make a joke about living in south Florida right now, but that’s just mean. Fortunately, I have found a solution to the problem of craving a burger when you can’t grill: a bacon cheeseburger soup recipe. Sure, you have to skip the bun, onion, and lettuce, but you could always have a salad on the side. Just add croutons if you can’t go without the bread ?
This made about 6 good size bowls of soup! This soup is very filling and I couldn’t even finish a whole bowl.
The Ingredients
A lot of the ingredients for this soup recipe were either things I always keep on hand or leftovers from other recipes. That explains why I used sliced pickles instead of a whole dill pickle. I mainly use them for sandwiches and burgers, so I always buy pickles that are already sliced. It wasn’t difficult to approximate for this recipe, though. The only items I needed to buy were the ground beef, cream cheese, and heavy cream.
I did have a couple of questions after I read over the list of ingredients. The first was “ground red pepper”. The author, thankfully, had a picture of the ingredients on her blog, and it showed McCormick Red Pepper. A quick Google of that showed me a description of the product, and it’s another name for cayenne pepper, which I always have in my pantry.
The other item IÂ was unsure of was “yellow mustard”. I think of the prepared condiment with burgers, but sometimes it can be powdered. The picture of the ingredients on the author’s blog saved me again–it’s the prepared condiment version for this recipe.
The Process
This recipe is keto-friendly, but I’m not on the ketogenic diet because it’s high in fat. I still wanted to try this recipe because who doesn’t like bacon, cheeseburgers, and soup? But I did take a few steps to reduce some fat.
Pouring off most of the bacon grease after I fried the bacon was probably the biggest fat reducer. There was a lot since this recipe calls for 5 slices! (The author even suggests using bacon bits to speed things along, but they’re just not the same as real bacon.)
I also used 90/10 ground sirloin instead of the 80/20 that’s called for. I could have gone further with reduced-fat or fat-free cheeses and a lighter cream, but I didn’t want to risk affecting the taste too much on my first try.
The whole process took 20 minutes, just as listed. I put the bacon on to fry and did my prep work while it was cooking. And I have to say this bacon cheeseburger soup recipe is one of the quickest meals I’ve ever made. I was not looking forward to cooking the night I made it, and it was so nice to have a tasty meal that was fast and easy to make.
