Low Carb Bacon Cheeseburger Skillet Casserole

This bacon cheeseburger casserole combines extra lean ground beef, center cut bacon, 3 types of cheese, a simple burger sauce, and one secret ingredient to create a one-pan meal that’s like eating a burger and fries. Every serving has 30 grams of protein and only 6 grams of carbs, making it an awesome meal prep recipe for those looking to cut carbs.

It’s super easy to make and can be easily customized to fit different calorie and macronutrient needs, but we’ll get to that. First, I’ll walk you through the recipe visually and cover ingredient substitutions as well as preparation tips. If you’re in a hurry, hit the jump to recipe button above and hop back up to the post if you have any questions.

Bacon Cheeseburger Skillet Recipe Walkthrough

This is a simple recipe, and I’m betting you have nearly everything you need in your refrigerator. You’ll need a pound of extra lean ground beef and a 12-ounce bag of trimmed radishes. I used the same Trader Joe’s radishes I used for my garlic parmesan air fryer roasted radishes and low carb breakfast skillet. You can use other radishes and root vegetables. Check out my low carb potato alternatives guide for nine options and tips for cooking each.

Or if you have the carbs to spare, you can even use potatoes like I used for my loaded ground beef and potatoes skillet.

Aside from the ground beef and radishes, you’ll need some ketchup, light mayo, whole grain or dijon mustard, dill pickle slices, Worcestershire sauce, and shredded cheese.

And if you want to make this a bacon cheeseburger skillet, you’ll need some center cut bacon. Though you can omit the bacon and use a little olive oil instead. Speaking of, let’s get down to business.

Cook bacon in a skillet before sautéing quartered radishes for 5 minutes to soften.

Like I just mentioned, you can skip the bacon and use your choice of oil instead. As little as a tablespoon should do the trick. Though if you go this route, you’ll probably want to add a bit of salt.

If you’re using radishes that vary in size, you may need to cut the larger radishes into 8 pieces instead of 4 like the smaller radishes. You want evenly sized pieces for even cooking.

Push the radishes to one side of the skillet and brown a pound of extra lean ground beef.

Like in my sweet chili ground beef and brussels sprouts, keeping the radishes in the pan while the beef cooks allows them to continue cooking through. But if you have a smaller pan, you can transfer the radishes to a plate and add them back in once the beef is cooked. Just make sure they’re cooked through before removing from the pan.

And in case you’ve never tried recipes like my beef baked taquitos or sesame ground beef and quinoa, I have a thing when it comes to browning meat. Be sure to give the beef time to develop some color on both sides before mincing and fully cooking. There’s so much flavor development that comes from the browning process.

As a pro tip, gently press the ground beef in the pan to create more surface area and faster browning.

Fully cook the beef before turning off the heat and adding a simple burger sauce.

There are thousands of burger sauce recipes out there, but I kept things simple with a blend of condiments you should already have in the fridge. I would encourage you to taste the burger sauce before adding it to the cheeseburger skillet and tweaking the ingredient ratios to your liking. More ketchup will make it sweeter while more Worcestershire sauce will make it more umami. Have fun here!

Side note: If you’re a burger sauce aficionado, check out my copycat recipes for animal style In-N-Out burgers and Shake Shack Double SmokeShacks.

My one pan ground beef cheesesteak would be a great alternative topping. And if you wanted to swap the ground beef for ground chicken, I think the faux Chick-Fil-A sauce from my copycat grilled Chick-Fil-A nuggets would be a great sauce replacement in this step. You can also use this burger sauce and ground chicken combo to make my low carb cheeseburger pasta.

Top with shredded cheese and bake for about 5 minutes in a 400ºF oven.

American cheese is the king when it comes to making all things cheeseburgers, but I defied tradition with a simple 3-cheese blend. I even broke my rule about using freshly grated cheese, but I’m hoping you’ll keep that a secret.

I’ll also mention that this low carb cheeseburger skillet is different from something like a cheeseburger casserole, if you’re familiar with that. If you wanted something a bit casserole-like, check out this low carb cheeseburger casserole which incorporates heavy cream, cream cheese, and eggs.

Top the finished cheeseburger casserole with the cooked bacon, dill pickle slices, fresh parsley, and black pepper.

One thing I did experiment with in this step was mixing parsley and pickle slices in with the cheese before baking. If you like the contrast of cold pickles, you can add them on top of the melted cheese. But if you want the pickles incorporated and melded to the top of your cheeseburger skillet, feel free to add them in before going in the oven.

And as a final serving tip, you may want to mix up a little extra burger sauce for serving. You can omit the pickle juice from the additional sauce if you’re happy with the saltiness of the finished cheeseburger skillet.

Okay, that about covers it. If you have a recipe question I forgot to cover, leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy your bacon cheeseburger casserole! Be sure to let me know what you think in a recipe review.

P.S. This recipe was featured in a recent video about one pan meals that are great for travel. Check it out below!