Jump to Recipe

I will start this post off by saying that this soup is a labor of love. Yes, I am asking you to cook bacon until crisp and then remove it from the pot. I am also asking you to brown ground beef in the same pot, and remove it again. I’m then asking you to cook the rest of the ingredients to make this soup. This isn’t the fastest recipe on my site. But if you’re reading this in January and you’re doing a January Whole30 you’re probably spending a ton of time in your kitchen anyway. Make this soup while you’re in there.

Facebook *can* be an awesome place. I belong to a food forum group that is an offshoot of the town forum, to which I also belong. The food forum group has about 2,500 members and there is so much positivity every single day that it’s overall just nice to belong to it and it also serves as a pretty great source of inspiration. One cold afternoon a few months back, one member posted that he was cooking a “cheeseburger chowder.” The post got more likes than I had ever seen on the forum. There was a lot of interest and he shared the ingredients in the comments of the post. Most of the ingredients were things like cream cheese, cheddar cheese, milk, flour, Velveeta, etc. Overall, foods I don’t personally consume on a daily basis at this point in my life. But I loved the idea and I was inspired to create a Whole30 version of the soup for the blog since it was such a hit and sounded easy enough.

So this, my friends, is it!

thehungryhungryhiker

Bacon Cheeseburger Chowder

A hearty paleo and Whole30 soup that's loaded to the brim with hidden vegetables and is comforting enough to curb your cheeseburger craving!
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings: 6 people
Course: Soup
Cuisine: American
Ingredients Equipment Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • ½ lb bacon, cut into lardons
  • 2 lbs ground beef
  • 1 white onion, large diced
  • 5 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 white potatoes, large peeled and diced
  • 2 carrots, large peeled and diced
  • 2 celery stalks diced
  • 8 cups chicken broth or stock
  • 1 pound cauliflower I used a frozen bag, defrosted
  • sea salt to taste
  • fresh ground black pepper to taste
  • 1 tsp dried parsley plus more for garnish if desired
  • ½ cup nutritional yeast
  • 3 handfuls kale, packed destemmed and torn
  • red onions, for garnish optional
  • sesame seeds, for garnish optional

Equipment

  • Immersion blender

Method
 

  1. Add the bacon to a large soup pot over medium heat. Saute, stirring occasionally, until crisp and cooked through to your liking, about 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Drain the bacon fat from the pot and discard (see Note).
  2. Add the ground beef to the pot over medium heat. Add a pinch of sea salt. Stir occasionally and break up with a spatula. When browned, remove the beef from the pot with a slotted spoon and place in a medium bowl. Set aside.
  3. Add the onion, garlic, potatoes, carrots, and celery to the pot and stir to coat with the rendered beef fat. Saute for 10 minutes until the vegetables have started to soften.
  4. Add the chicken broth, cauliflower, sea salt, black pepper, and dried parsley. Stir to combine and increase the heat to high. Bring to a boil and reduce to medium low. Simmer until vegetables are fork tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. .
  5. Remove the pot from heat and use an immersion blender to blend until combined completely. Stir in the nutritional yeast. Add the bacon pieces (reserve some for garnish if you wish) and ground beef back to the pot. Add the kale and stir to combine. Return the pot to medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes more until the kale has wilted. Ladle into bowls. Garnish with red onions, bacon pieces, parsley, and sesame seeds if desired and serve hot!

Notes

You can leave the rendered bacon fat in the pot if you wish. Leaving it would have been too fatty for my taste, so I chose to remove it