This easy cheeseburger soup recipe comes together in about 30 minutes and has an unbelievable 5 grams of fat, 190 calories, and 4 WW Smart Points per 1-cup serving. It’s super filling, loaded with flavor, and highly customizable.
While the recipe was developed for pressure cookers, I’ve included a few notes on making this cheeseburger soup in a crockpot or on the stovetop. Let’s get into it!
How to Make Cheeseburger Soup
I’ll briefly run you through how to make this cheeseburger soup and give you a few ingredient modification notes along the way. You’ll find a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Before we get into the recipe, I’ll point out that I tested this recipe in a 6.5-quart Ninja Foodi. I’ve found the Foodi cooks almost identically to the 6-quart Instant Pot, for comparison. And like I mentioned above, I’ve added a few notes on other cooking methods in the recipe card below.
Note: If you’d like to check out the Ninja Foodi, you can find it along with all my recommended tools and ingredients on my Amazon storefront.
The Beef and Vegetables
This cheeseburger soup is crazy simple. All you need to do to get started is brown some ground beef with a little salt and pepper before adding potatoes, onion, carrots, and garlic.
While pressure cookers aren’t the best for browning ground meats, it can be done. Check out my vegetable beef soup recipe for tips on browning ground beef.
If you’re team minimal veggie prep, I won’t judge you for buying pre-chopped veggies. You could even used drained canned potatoes like in my loaded air fryer chicken and potatoes.
Potato note: You can use russet potatoes instead of yukon if you’d like. Like I mention in my Tex-Mex ground beef and potato soup, the extra starch from russet potatoes help thicken the soup. So you may need to add more cooking liquid if you go the russet route. And if you wanted to use a shortcut ingredient, the canned diced potatoes in my hamburger soup are a solid option.
Seasoning Your Cheeseburger Soup
You can get creative in this step. The recipe calls for parsley, ground mustard, and dill weed. You could add some spice via paprika, extra black pepper, or other dried chiles.
I wouldn’t add any additional salt since the cheese sauce is quite salty. Speaking of…
The 2-Ingredient Low Fat Cheese Sauce
Instead of Velveeta cheese or making a cheese sauce like some traditional cheeseburger soup recipes, I opted for a mixture of fat free Greek yogurt and the magical ingredient cheddar powder. If you’re unfamiliar with the latter, it’s essentially dehydrated cheddar—kinda like powdered peanut butter. I’ve used it to make things like my air fryer cheese bread and tons of other recipes.
The beauty of using cheddar powder is that you get all the great cheddar flavor with a fraction of the fat and calories. When mixed into a cup of Greek yogurt (400 calories total) like in this cheeseburger soup, you’d need over 10 ounces of real cheddar (1,100+ calories) to create the same amount of volume!
It’s easiest to order cheddar powder online but if you’re in a pinch, the cheese packets in boxed mac and cheese are similar. You could also try these cheddar powder alternatives:
- jarred queso like in my chicken fajita pasta bake
- nutritional yeast and spices (you’ll still want to mix the spice blend with some type of yogurt)
- gradually add shredded cheese like in my one-pot chicken bacon ranch mac and cheese
Bringing Everything Together
Once you’ve got your cheese sauce sorted, simply add it to the cooked soup and stir. That’s it, you’re done!
While my cheeseburger soup cooked, I pan fried a few slices of bacon and diced a bit of green onion to throw on top.
Final Cheeseburger Soup Recipe Notes
In case you’re wondering about omitting certain veggies, I’ll say the recipe should work with just about any modification. The only thing to watch out for is adding too much chicken broth relative to the amount of beef and vegetables. Too much broth in the cooked soup will make it difficult to incorporate the cheese sauce evenly.
Similarly, I wouldn’t try throwing cheese straight in the soup in place of some kind of cheese sauce. You’ll likely end up with stringy cheese instead of a smooth cheeseburger soup.
Finally, dairy free ideas include a blend of the nutritional yeast mixture I mentioned above and something like vegan yogurt, cashew based cream cheese, or other creamy DF products. I’ve seen several members of my Facebook group recommend Siete’s vegan queso product as well.
And before you get to the recipe card I figured I’d point your attention to more cheeseburger recipes like my ground chicken cheeseburger pasta and low carb bacon cheeseburger skillet.
Okay, that should cover it. If you have a question about this cheeseburger soup I missed, leave a comment below or join the group I mentioned above with 16,000 other healthy home cooks that would love to help you out!
30-Minute Cheeseburger Soup
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground Beef, I used 96/4
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt and Black Pepper
- 2 300g Sweet Onions, diced
- 5 400g Baby Yukon Gold Potatoes, cubed
- 2-3 150g Carrots, sliced
- 4 cloves 20g Garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp Chopped Parsley
- 1 Tbsp Ground Mustard
- 1/2 tsp Dill Weed, optional
- 2 C 480g Low Sodium Chicken Broth
- 1 C 227g Fat Free Greek Yogurt
- 1/2 C 56g Cheddar Powder**
Instructions
- Use the sauté function of your pressure cooker to brown the ground beef. Add salt and pepper halfway through cooking.
- When the beef is fully cooked, add the potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic, stirring everything together.
- Add the parsley, ground mustard, dill weed, and chicken broth, stirring everything together once more.
- Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes with quick release pressure (vent as soon as it’s finished cooking).
- While the soup cooks, mix the cheddar powder and Greek yogurt together. Add the yogurt and cheese mixture to the soup once you’ve vented. Stir well and leave the pressure cooker on its keep warm function.
- Optional: pan fry bacon, chop fresh green onions, and grate some fresh cheddar cheese for toppings.
Notes
- Each cup (250g) of cheeseburger soup has 4 Smart Points.
- To make this soup in a slow cooker, cook the ground beef on the stovetop before adding the vegetables, herbs and spices, and broth. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or until the veggies are tender. Turn off the heat and stir in the cheese sauce.
- For the stovetop, follow the same instructions as the pressure cooker version but bring the soup to a boil after adding the broth. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese sauce.
This soup is amazing. It kills cheeseburger cravings and is warm and hearty for the cool winter nights. I personally skipped the potatoes and dipped some crackers in it and it was delicious. Also highly recommend topping with a little relish if you like relish on your burgers (small quantities as a garnish on top)
Thanks you so much for sharing this recipe! The cheese blew my mind – who knew?! This really has helped me curve the cravings for something not-so-healthy while packing a big punch in the flavor department. This will be a regular!!!!
Tried this for the first time this weekend and I love it! I used ground turkey instead of beef and it was great!
This recipe is so comforting for winter. The only thing I changed is that I used veggie ground meat and made a cheese sauce using the basic white sauce recipe referenced here. I really need to buy some of the cheddar cheese powder!
Thanks you so much for sharing this recipe! The cheese blew my mind – who knew?! This really has helped me curve the cravings for something not-so-healthy while packing a big punch in the flavor department. This will be a regular!!!!
Tried this for the first time this weekend and I love it! I used ground turkey instead of beef and it was great!
This recipe is so comforting for winter. The only thing I changed is that I used veggie ground meat and made a cheese sauce using the basic white sauce recipe referenced here. I really need to buy some of the cheddar cheese powder!
Perfect for a cold and rainy day. This soup has lots of flavor and is so easy to make in the Instant Pot! I chopped up some bacon to sprinkle on top and it was a tasty addition to this dish!
Perfect for a cold and rainy day. This soup has lots of flavor and is so easy to make in the Instant Pot! I chopped up some bacon to sprinkle on top and it was a tasty addition to this dish!
You know a recipe is good when the husband asks “is this even healthy?” Yes! I usually double or triple the batch because we eat so much of it! I wasnt sure eha tto do with all the cheddar powder I bought, but this is it!