Cheeseburger Soup

Name: Cheeseburger Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 35 min
Ingredients: 1 lb Ground Beef; 7 tbsp Butter (divided); 1 cup chopped Onion; 1 cup sliced Carrots; 3/4 cup diced Celery; 4 cup Potatoes (diced); 1 tsp Basil; 1 tbsp minced Garlic; 3 cup Chicken Broth; 1/4 cup Flour; 8 oz shredded Cheddar Cheese; 1 1/2 cup Milk; 1 tsp Salt; 1/2 tsp Black Pepper

By Jen Lunsford

on Feb 02, 2021, Updated Jan 29, 2024

6 Comments

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Cheeseburger Soup is a rich, hearty, and cheesy soup using ground beef and cheese. This filling dish is certain to be a new family favorite!

Vegetables, ground beef, and cheddar cheese come together for this easy-to-make dinner soup that the whole family’s going to love! Goes great with a side of Dutch Oven Bread or some Easy Dinner Rolls.

Cheeseburger Soup

Especially during these colder months, I’m a big fan of rich, creamy, and comforting soup recipes. This recipe for Cheeseburger Soup has always been one of my favorites for a number of reasons. Not only does it pack all sorts of delicious and filling ingredients into one soup, but it does so inexpensively!

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Ground beef and potatoes form the backbone of this Cheesy Burger Soup. It’s a great recipe to reach for when you’ve got leftover ground beef or some Yukon Golds that you need to use up! Of course, we can’t forget about the cheese: I’m usually reaching for sharp cheddar but you can use all sorts of cheeses for this recipe. I’ve made it in more of a Tex-Mex style with some pepper jack, and- of course- I’ve also made it with some Velveeta. In all, this is just a great recipe that you can make work with whatever you have on hand!

Served up with some good, crusty bread, this recipe is certain to be your family’s new favorite recipe. My kiddos are usually pretty picky eaters but they’ll still come back for seconds whenever I’m making this Easy Cheeseburger Soup! In a pinch, you can even keep and reheat any leftovers… if you have any left. This is a delicious soup recipe- don’t be surprised when you and your family have licked the pot clean!

Enjoyed this soup recipe? Try these other recipes for soup using ground beef!

Hamburger Soup has got to be your first stop after our Cheeseburger Soup recipe. Veggies, potatoes, and ground beef come together for this stew that’s perfect as a weeknight dinner. Keep things simple using convenient canned ingredients and frozen veggies!
Using the slow cooker, you can easily make some comforting Beef & Tomato Macaroni Soup. Adding in pasta is an easy way to make the soup nice and filling. Another good dinner option for a busy weeknight!
If you’re looking for something traditional and reliable, go with our recipe for Pasta Fagioli. Beans are a great and inexpensive way to add flavor to your soups and make them nice, hearty, and filling. Serve up with some nice bread for a simple but comforting dinner.

Cheeseburger Soup Ingredients

Ground Beef
Onions
Carrots – If you have them, try using some baby carrots.
Celery
Garlic
Potatoes – Russet potatoes will hold their shape the best. If you don’t have any, feel free to just use Yukon Gold potatoes- just try to not overcook them. We want chunks of potatoes in our soup- not a mush!
Basil
Butter
Chicken Broth
Flour
Cheese – We usually use some sharp cheddar cheese but some folks like Cheeseburger Soup with Velveeta. Try different cheeses and see which ones you like the best.
Milk
Salt & Pepper

How to prepare our Burger Soup

You’d expect such a rich and flavorful soup to be hard to make- you thought wrong! You can make this Cheeseburger Soup easy!

Sautee beef and veggies with some butter in a large pot or pan.
Simmer along with some potatoes in some chicken stock until potatoes are tender.
Thicken and flavor your soup with some roux, cheese, and milk.

After getting all of your ingredients chopped, diced, and prepped, we can get started on our recipe. First things first: drop your beef into a medium or large pot or pan and start browning over medium to medium-high heat.

Once we’ve cooked the pink out of our ground beef, we can start thinking about sauteeing our veggies. While you can use the fat that’s cooked off our beef for sauteing, we’re going to drain it off and melt some butter in with our ground beef instead. Personal preference- feel free to cook your veggies with whatever fat you please!

Once our butter is warmed up and melted, we’re going to drop in our carrots, onions, celery, garlic, and basil. Mix those in until nice and incorporated and continue cooking over medium/medium-high heat. We’re going to cook for a few minutes until our onions are translucent.

Now that our onions are cooked through, we can move on to the potatoes. Drop your potatoes into the pot along with some chicken stock. Crank up the heat and allow everything to come to a boil before dropping the heat and bringing things down to a simmer. Cover this and let cook for about 15 minutes- until your potatoes have become tender.

While that cooks, use some butter and flour to cook up a quick roux- we’ll touch on this in just a second. Once your potatoes are cooked, add the roux to your pot, bring the soup back up to a boil, and stir that roux in until fully incorporated. Bring the heat down to low, add in your milk and cheese, season to taste, and cook until your cheese melts. After your cheese is melted in and mixed, you can serve up your soup and enjoy!

How to make roux

Making roux is one of those simple things in the kitchen that’s easy to learn but tricky to master. At its core, it’s just cooking together flour and fat. However, there’s so much more to it than that! But let’s get right into it: in a saucepan of some kind, melt some butter.

After the butter melts and starts bubbling, you’re going to add an equal amount of flour. Stir this flour around with something like a wooden spatula until it’s thoroughly mixed with your butter. This is a roux and you can use it for all sorts of recipes. Cooking the roux a bit lighter- maybe 5 minutes- will be great for creamy or cheesy soups, like our Cheeseburger Soup. Cooking it a bit darker- 8 minutes and beyond- will make it better for darker gravies or rich, meaty soups. There are all sorts of guides to making roux out there but this video from the Food Network gives a quick rundown of what you need to know.

Usually, you’ll add liquid to a roux but, for our recipe, it’s much easier to just add the roux to the soup. We bring the soup up to a boil to make sure that roux can sort of “melt” into the soup where it can thicken it up and add a bit more flavor.

Should I use milk or cream for my soup?

At the end of our recipe, we add milk to our Cheeseburger Soup to sort of fill it out- we want more soup but we don’t want to water it down. Milk is the most convenient way to do this but we could’ve also used heavy cream in its place and we might’ve had an extra creamy soup. Feel free to sub out some of the milk with heavy cream or use something like half-and-half in your own soup! You might even add a bit of sour cream if you’re feeling adventurous…

What to serve with Cheeseburger Soup?

Right away you can spruce this soup up with some toppings. Consider topping your soup with some chopped bacon, some sour cream, or maybe some croutons or tortilla chips. Whatever you top the soup with, you can- and, we think, you should- serve the soup along with something simple like some good bread!

Can you freeze Cheeseburger Soup?

This is a very delicious soup but it can also be very filling so you may have some leftovers. Since this soup does have potatoes, cheese, and plenty of dairy in it, it is best enjoyed fresh. You can store your leftovers, however, if you don’t mind the potatoes becoming a bit mushy. Allow your soup to cool completely before storing it in an airtight container- if keeping in the fridge for 3-4 days- or a ziplock bag. If freezing, squeeze any excess air out of the bag, seal shut and lay flat in your freezer where it will keep for about a month. To reheat, just add the frozen soup to a pot on the stovetop and stir constantly over low/medium-low heat until melted and heated through.