Name: Cheeseburger Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 45 min
Ingredients: 1 lb (450 g) ground beef, 85/15 or 80/20; 1 medium (150 g) yellow onion (diced (about 1 cup)); 2 medium (130 g) carrots (diced (about 1 cup)); 2 celery stalks (90 g) (diced (about ¾ cup)); 2 teaspoons (6 g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt ((or 1¼ tsp Morton kosher salt, or 1 tsp table salt)); 3 garlic cloves (minced); 2 tablespoons (32 g) tomato paste; 2 tablespoons (30 g) yellow mustard; 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; 3 tablespoons (24 g) all-purpose flour; 4 cups (950 ml) low-sodium chicken broth; 1½ lb (680 g) Yukon Gold potatoes, ( peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes (about 4 cups)); 12 oz (340 g) sharp or extra-sharp cheddar (or half of each), (shredded from a block); 1 tablespoon (8 g) cornstarch; 1½ cups (355 ml) whole milk; 3 tablespoons dill pickle brine; Black pepper, (to taste)

Cheeseburger soup should taste like a cheeseburger, and most versions don’t. They’re seasoned with dried basil and parsley, so you end up with cheesy potato soup with ground beef. Good, just not a cheeseburger.

A bowl of cheeseburger soup topped with shredded cheddar, chopped dill pickles, and a dollop of sour cream.

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So I built this one around what makes a burger taste like a burger: yellow mustard, a little tomato paste, Worcestershire, a splash of pickle brine stirred in at the end, and chopped dill pickles on top. The first time I made it, the flavor was exactly what I wanted. The potatoes weren’t, because I cut them too big, so this version uses a smaller dice and a shorter simmer. When my husband tried it, he said, “This tastes like a cheeseburger!” That was the whole goal.

The other change is the cheese. This uses real sharp cheddar instead of Velveeta, and it stays smooth because you toss the shredded cheese with a spoonful of cornstarch and add it off the heat. I borrowed that trick from America’s Test Kitchen, which uses it in their fondue to keep the cheese from breaking.

It’s one pot, about 45 minutes, no draining, and it fits in the same cold-weather rotation as my Dutch oven beef stew without wine.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

One pot, about 45 minutes, and no draining. Most versions send you to a second skillet to make a roux and tell you to drain the beef fat first. You don’t need either one. Add the flour with the vegetables, and never take the pot off the burner.
It tastes like a cheeseburger. Mustard, tomato paste, Worcestershire, and a splash of pickle brine, not dried basil.
Real cheddar, no processed cheese. A cornstarch toss keeps it as smooth as the Velveeta version, without the Velveeta.
Kids build their own bowl. Put the toppings on the table, and everybody gets the version they want.

Ingredients

Sharp cheddar, shredded from a block. Buy the block and shred it yourself. Bagged shredded cheese is coated in potato starch and cellulose to keep the shreds separate, and that coating makes cheese sauce taste faintly gritty.
Yukon Gold potatoes. Yukons hold their shape through a 10-minute simmer. Cut them to a ½-inch dice, so they cook in the time the recipe says.
80/20 or 85/15 ground beef. Keep all the fat in the pot; it does the job butter would in most versions.
Yellow mustard. Plain French’s, not Dijon. Dijon is sharper and more wine-forward, and it pulls the soup away from the burger flavor you are after.
Dill pickles plus a splash of the brine. This is the ingredient doing the most work and the one most likely to get skipped. The acid cuts the dairy, and it is the thing that makes people say, “Oh, that does taste like a cheeseburger.”

See the recipe card below for full measurements.

Substitutions and Variations

Bacon cheeseburger soup. Cook 6 slices of chopped bacon first, set aside, then brown the beef in 1 tablespoon of the drippings. Crumble the bacon over each bowl instead of stirring it in to keep it crisp.
Macaroni cheeseburger soup. Add 1 cup dry elbow macaroni to the broth, and cut the potatoes to 1 lb. You’ll need about another cup of broth, because the pasta drinks it.
Leaner beef. 93/7 works. Add a tablespoon of butter with the vegetables, since there won’t be enough rendered fat to carry the onions.
Soy sauce instead of Worcestershire. I made it this way twice before settling on Worcestershire, and it’s good. Use 1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce and cut the kosher salt to 1 teaspoon, because soy adds much more sodium than Worcestershire.
Swap the cheese. Sharp cheddar plus a handful of Monterey Jack melts a little smoother. Thick-sliced American cheese from the deli counter, torn up, is the middle ground between cheddar and Velveeta.
No pickle jar? Two teaspoons of red wine vinegar get you part of the way toward the brine’s effect. Not all of it.
Make it spicy. Use pepper jack for half the cheddar.

This recipe has not been tested with other substitutions or variations. If you replace or add any ingredients, please let us know how it turned out in the comments below!

Step-by-step instructions

Brown the beef. Cook the ground beef in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, breaking it up, until no pink remains, 6–8 minutes. Leave the fat right in the pot.

Diced onion, carrots, and celery cooking with browned ground beef in a Dutch oven.

Soften the vegetables. Add the onion, carrots, celery, and salt directly to the beef and fat. Cook over medium heat until the onion is translucent and the carrots start to soften, 6–8 minutes.

Ground beef and diced vegetables cooking in a Dutch oven.

Build the burger flavor. Stir in the garlic, tomato paste, mustard, and Worcestershire. Cook for 1 minute, until the tomato paste darkens a shade and the pot smells savory instead of raw.

Flour sprinkled over ground beef and diced vegetables in a Dutch oven.

Add the flour. Sprinkle the flour over everything and stir constantly for 1–2 minutes. It will look dry and clumpy.

Ground beef, diced potatoes, carrots, and celery simmering in broth in a Dutch oven for cheeseburger soup.

Simmer the potatoes. Pour in the broth, scraping up the bottom of the pot, then add the potatoes. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are fork-tender (10 minutes).

Shredded cheddar cheese tossed with cornstarch in a glass bowl.

Toss the cheese with cornstarch. In a bowl, toss the shredded cheddar with the cornstarch until every shred looks dusty.

Creamy cheeseburger soup with diced potatoes and ground beef in a Dutch oven after the milk is stirred in.

Add the milk. Lower the heat to medium-low and stir in the milk. As soon as the soup is steaming, turn off the burner. Don’t let it bubble.

A mound of shredded cheddar cheese on top of cheeseburger soup in a Dutch oven, ready to be stirred in.

Melt in the cheese, then add the brine. Add the coated cheese to the pot one handful at a time, stirring until each one melts before adding the next. Stir in the pickle brine, then taste and adjust with salt and pepper.

Can you make cheeseburger soup with Velveeta?

Yes. Use 12 oz, cubed, in place of the cheddar and cornstarch, and stir it in over low heat. It won’t break on you because processed cheese has emulsifying salts that hold the fat and protein together. That’s why so many versions use it.

It’s also why the soup ends up tasting like processed cheese. Real cheddar has more flavor and no emulsifiers, which is exactly why it breaks when you dump it into a hot pot. The cornstarch toss fixes that in about 10 seconds.

So with Velveeta you’re trading flavor for insurance, and on a Wednesday that’s a completely reasonable trade.

Which potatoes are best for cheeseburger potato soup?

Yukon Gold. They sit in the middle of the starch range, so they turn creamy inside but still hold a cube through the simmer.

Russets have more starch and less structure. In a simmering soup, they start breaking down at the edges, thickening and clouding the broth, leaving you with fewer actual potato pieces. That’s not ruined; it’s just a different soup than the one in the photos.

Red potatoes are the other safe pick. They’re waxy, so they hold their shape better than Yukons, though they bring less buttery flavor.

Peeling is your call. I peel Yukons because the soup looks cleaner, and their thin skins can slip off and float once they soften. If you’d rather skip peeling, reds are the better choice, since their skins hold on through cooking.

If you like Yukon Golds and sharp cheddar, my potato and cheddar cheese pierogi use the same pairing, just wrapped in dough.

Why does cheese soup turn grainy?

Because cheese is an emulsion, heat breaks it down.

Cheddar is fat and water held together by protein. When it gets too hot, the protein tightens and squeezes out the fat, and you get grainy curds floating in a greasy broth. Once that happens, you can’t stir it back.

Two things prevent it, and this recipe uses both:

Coat the cheese in starch. Tossing the shreds with cornstarch puts a barrier between the proteins so they can’t clump.

Add it off the heat. A pot of soup holds plenty of heat with the burner off. That leftover warmth is more than enough to melt cheddar, and it never gets hot enough to push the cheese past the point of no return.

One more fix is really a shopping decision: skip bagged shredded cheese. Its anti-caking coating isn’t the same as a deliberate cornstarch toss, and it leaves a chalky edge in a sauce.

What to serve with cheeseburger soup

Treat it like the burger it’s pretending to be.

Something crunchy and tangy is the right move, so I put coleslaw with celery seed next to it. Add soft rolls or pretzel buns for dunking, and dill pickle spears on the side for the real pickle fans.

For the toppings bar: chopped dill pickles, a spoonful of sour cream, shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon, diced raw onion, a squeeze of ketchup and mustard, and crushed crackers or sesame seeds if you want to lean all the way into the bun joke.

Sarah’s Tips

Leave the beef fat in the pot. It’s what softens the onions and carries the flour, so you don’t need to add butter. One less step, one less thing to wash.
Shred the cheese while the potatoes simmer. You have about 10 idle minutes there. Toss it with the cornstarch then, so it’s ready the second you turn off the burner.
Steam, not bubble, once the milk goes in. Boiling milk can curdle it, and a pot that’s too hot breaks the cheese. If you see bubbles, pull the pot off the burner for a minute.
Add the pickle brine last. Stir it in at the end to keep the tang bright, which is what makes this taste like a cheeseburger.
Keep the potatoes diced to ½-inch. My first batch used bigger chunks, and they were still firm when everything else was done.

Recipe FAQs

Probably not. The chopped pickles go only on top, so they can skip them, and the brine in the pot just tastes tangy. Nobody notices brine. Everybody notices a pickle.

You can, and it’ll melt. It just won’t be as smooth, because of the coating on the shreds. Still toss it with the cornstarch, and still add it off the heat.

Probably the potatoes. Yukon potatoes hold their shape, so the body comes from the flour and the cheese, not dissolved potato. For a thicker soup, mash a few potato cubes against the side of the pot before adding the cheese.

Yes, in a 7-quart or larger pot.

Two bowls of cheeseburger soup topped with shredded cheddar, sour cream, and diced dill pickles, served with a piece of crusty bread.

Storage

Refrigerator: 3–4 days in an airtight container.

Reheating: Low and slow on the stovetop, stirring, with a splash of milk or broth to loosen it. For a single bowl, microwave at 50 percent power and stir every 30 seconds. Reheating it hard is the second most common way to break this soup, right after boiling it the first time.

Freezing: For the best texture, freeze the soup once the potatoes are tender, before adding the milk and cheese. Let it cool, and freeze it in airtight containers for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge, gently warm on the stovetop, then finish with the milk, cheese, and pickle brine. Milk and cheese both tend to turn grainy when frozen.

Make-ahead: Cook the soup up through adding the milk, then stop before adding the cheese. Let it cool, and refrigerate it in an airtight container for 3–4 days. When you’re ready to eat, warm it gently over medium-low heat until it’s steaming, then turn off the burner, melt in the cornstarch-tossed cheese one handful at a time, and stir in the pickle brine.