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 like Trader Joe’s butternut squash zig zags that I used to make high protein burger bowls. 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.
Low Carb Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole
Ingredients
- 4 slices Center Cut Bacon, cut into strips
- 16 oz Radishes, quartered
- 1 pound Ground Beef, 96/4
- 1/4 cup 64g Sugar Free Ketchup
- 2 Tablespoons 30g Light Mayo
- 2 Tablespoons 30g Dijon or Whole Grain Mustard
- 2 Tablespoons 30g Pickle Juice
- 1 Tablespoon 15g Worcestershire Sauce
- 4 oz Shredded Cheese
- 8-10 Dill Pickle Chips, diced
- Freshly Chopped Parsley and Parmesan, optional garnishes
Instructions
- Add the bacon to a large skillet over medium heat and fully cook before transferring the cooked bacon to plate, leaving the rendered fat behind.
- Add the quartered radishes to the skillet and cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the radishes start to soften.
- Push the radishes to one side before adding the ground beef. Brown one side of the ground beef for 4-5 minutes before breaking apart to fully cook.
- While the beef cooks, mix the ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickle juice, and Worcestershire sauce together in a small bowl. Once the beef is fully cooked, turn off the heat and add the sauce. Stir to fully incorporate.
- Top with shredded cheese, diced pickles, and some of the cooked bacon. Bake in a 400ºF oven for 10 minutes to fully melt the cheese. Top with the remaining cooked and crumbled bacon, fresh parsley, and parmesan. Salt and pepper to taste.
Nutrition
P.S. This recipe was featured in a recent video about one pan meals that are great for travel. Check it out below!
Great burger-tasting dish, and a good change from stir fry. I added some cauliflower rice for volume. The radishes are a good potato dupe. I may try turnips next time as I find they taste more potato-like.
Who knew radishes could be potatoes but promise you they are so good in this dish! We sautéed them in the bacon grease and yummy!!!
What an easy, quick, nutritious and best one pot meal! Love it. Thank you for sharing the simple yet good good.
This recipe is so good. The radishes mimic potatoes so closely that my family couldn’t tell that they are not potatoes. It’s a great swap and the added bacon fat give the recipe so much flavor. This is going into the rotation!!
I’m embarrassed that I’ve never done anything with radishes besides slicing them for a salad and now I want them every day. We loved this recipe! Next time, I’m going to double the radishes to give each serving more volume. This time, I served it over spinach for a “cheeseburger salad” and I also added grape tomatoes. Definitely adding this to the rotation!
Adding this to the meal plan! Do you think I could substitute a head of cauliflower for the radishes? I have a radish skeptic in the house(doesn’t care for the bite) but he likes roasted cauliflower. Thanks for sharing, we love your recipes!
Oh yeah, that’s actually a great idea! Let me know if you try it out.
@Mason Woodruff, Replaced the radishes with a large head of cauliflower and it turned out great! As my little one said “This is even better than pizza and my favorite spaghetti!”
That’s high praise. Thanks for the feedback and cauliflower research, Nicole!
Soo good! And will be using that sauce on all kinds of things!!
Happy to hear you enjoyed! That sauce makes a great fry sauce for the higher carb days.
We love this recipe so much! We make a few times a month. I’m sure the radishes would taste good but I literally never remember to buy them so we usually use 20 ounces (before cooking) of diced red potatoes. Since the volume is higher than the radishes we just add 20 mls more of pocket juice and about 10 more mls of the w- sauce (apparently I can’t spell it nor pronounce it 😆). The sauce is prob one of my favs and really helps you feel satiated when you’re craving a cheeseburger and fry night but don’t have the macros or extra space in your jeans to eat one.
Such an easy recipe that is so delicious. And because there is so much sauce in the recipe it repeats so nicely the next day!
Wow! Just wow! The flavors in this are great!