Cheeseburger Dip Recipe

Everyone loves a good burger. Well, except maybe vegetarians. But even still, there are so many options these days to make a tasty plant-based burger, vegetarians likely enjoy them just as well. Now take your favorite classic burger flavors of beef, cheddar cheese, pickles, and thousand island dressing and put them in a dip served with chips. That's exactly what recipe developer and registered dietitian nutritionist Kristen Carli MS, RD did when she developed this cheeseburger dip recipe — can you say yum?! If you are vegetarian, simply substitute the ground beef for plant-based meat alternatives such as Beyond Burger or Impossible Meat.

We love this dip served with chips for dipping. It's the ideal game day snack food, but it can also be just about the tastiest dinner you've ever prepared. Are you drooling yet? You will need your oven, a stove top, a medium skillet and an 8x8-inch baking dish to whip up this recipe. So, if your kitchen is ready to go, let's get cooking!

To make this delicious cheeseburger dip, the first step requires you to assemble your ingredients. For this recipe, make sure you have a yellow onion, ground beef, salt, pepper, cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, dill pickles, thousand island dressing, and chips for serving. You can use any kind of chips you like to serve with this dip. We personally like tortilla chips as they are extra sturdy, but potato chips are delightful as well.

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Prepare your 8x8-inch baking dish by spraying it with nonstick cooking spray. Next, heat a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Add in the diced onion, ground beef, salt, and pepper. Using a wooden spoon, break up the beef into smaller pieces. Stir and sauté the mixture until the beef is no longer pink and the onions become translucent. This takes about eight minutes. No need to add fat like oil to this mix since the beef has plenty.

Next up, we want to add our cheeses. Pour the ground beef and onion mixture into a large bowl. Add 8 ounces of softened cream cheese and 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. Then, using a large wooden spoon, stir this mixture until it is well combined. If your cream cheese is pretty cold, this may be difficult. Try your best to stir the cream cheese into the other ingredients, but if you are able to let the cream cheese sit out beforehand to soften, be sure to do so!

Now that you have your mixture assembled, carefully pour this mixture into the prepared baking dish. Using the back of a wooden spoon, press the dip down into the pan, making sure to spread the contents evenly. Make sure to get the mixture into the corners of the baking dish. Then, sprinkle on the remaining shredded cheddar cheese to the top of the dish. Make sure to sprinkle the cheese evenly, so each bite will have gooey, melted cheddar cheese in it.

Place your baking dish into the hot oven and cook for at least 12 minutes. You will know the dip is done when the cheese on top is melted and gooey. When the 12 minutes are up, remove the baking dish from the oven. Add sliced dill pickles to the top of the dip, then drizzle the thousand island dressing on top of the pickles — or whatever condiment you like best on a burger. That's it! Now you can dive in.

While the cheeseburger dip is still warm, be sure to serve this along with some chips: tortilla, potato, pita, any will do. We love this dip at a football viewing party. It's a hearty and flavorful dip that is best served alongside the other typical football food. You know the drill: wings, celery and carrots, nachos, guacamole, onion dip, and the like. If you want to be a fun parent, you can even serve this for dinner. Don't worry about the nutritional quality. This dip contains protein and when served with chips it also contains carbs — we'd consider that a balanced meal.