The Crockpot burger casserole is amazing! A slow-cooker dinner filled with ground beef and macaroni and cheese noodles. Comfort food at its finest!
Slow cooker burger casserole
If you’re looking for a pot full of pure homemade food, you’ve come to the right place! My kids go crazy for this macaroni and cheeseburger style dish every time I make it. I love the fact that it’s a feel-good meal that’s pretty cheap to make and feeds a crowd.
Accompany it with a salad for a little freshness and dinner is served. You could even use leftover taco meat inside if you had something in the fridge, or the spicy ground sausage is also wonderful for the protein. I’ve used small shells instead of macaroni noodles just for fun too. There are tons of adjustments you can make.
Let’s talk a little bit about slow cooking, okay? First of all, I have a few different varieties and I love them all. Each has an occasion to be used as…
- This is my programmable 6-quart favorite with a locking lid, so it’s also great to take
- If you just want to serve a few appetizers, you should get this one that sits next to each other
- I prefer not to use coatings, but simply to sprinkle olive oil inside before adding my food for easy cleanings.
to a meal.
.
Let me give you a look at my pretty thang I recently bought. It goes with my kitchen, so I can leave it on the countertop all the time. 😉
This came up like many others in The Typical Mom really. I had a pound of ground beef and some potatoes that needed to be used, so I went to get pantry!
You know, find some other items that I thought would go well together and BAM, a cheeseburger casserole was created. You could omit the potatoes, but diced, they bulged the plate and gave it a bit of texture as I left the skins on. Crockpot Ok burger casserole recipe, so let me tell you what we put in our version. 😉
Like I said, you could incorporate any type of ground beef you prefer. With all the different variations we’ve done, I’d say half a roll of spicy sausage + 1/2 pound burger is probably best. It gives you a little warmth but not too much.
Use what you like or what you have in your fridge that needs to be sold out is what I say.
- Ground beef
- Onion
- Potatoes – Cut potatoes and then dice them
- Mushroom soup cream: don’t use the low-fat version
- Cheese – I like spicy grated cheese personally
A mix like Mexican mix is also great if you can find that variety at your local supermarket. I’ve even done this with a dairy-free cheese so my husband could enjoy it and the kids didn’t even know the difference. 😉
A mixture of cheddar and pepper jack is also pretty good, I usually only use what I have on hand at the time. Do you see my trend? Using what you have at home, I hate wasting food and casseroles are great ways to use all things, right? 😉
- Sour cream
- Macaroni noodles with elbow Garlic salt
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Meat broth
Similar to my recipe for slow cooker potatoes with cheese, this one is great for dinner or even an afternoon meal.
Can you put raw ground beef in a slow cooker?
We have done it! Try our Crockpot ground beef instructions if you wish. I will also throw raw chicken or braised beef there. With our 5-ingredient crockpot chili, I usually make ground meat from air fryer very quickly and then throw it away.
- If you really want to cook ground beef in a cooking pot, here are instructions.
What happens if you don’t brown the meat before cooking it slowly?
- Theoretically, you could cook the meat in your slow cooker along with everyone else, as long as it reaches a safe temperature before serving.
Honestly, although the texture is a bit strange. Just take the extra 5 minutes to cook or brown it beforehand.
Is it necessary to dip the meat in a slow cooker?
It’s not a necessity, but I usually do it to give it more flavor and so it’s more tender too. I like it nice and coated so that all the flavors can leach into the proteins, so my answer is, ideally yes, you should.
The most important tip to remember when making this slow-cooked meat casserole: the noodles DO need to be dipped in the liquid. If not, they won’t become tender like you want them to be in a casserole.
- However, do not add the macaroni noodles until step 3. They only need about 30 minutes to cook in the liquid or else they will turn into porridge. Not good.
Creamy ingredients like cheese, milk (in other recipes), and sour cream should also be added at the end to maintain their flavor.
You also don’t want dairy products to curdle in the long cooking pot recipe process.
Crockpot ground beef casserole
First I suggest spraying nonstick spray into your pot. Some choose to use cooker liners, but personally the idea of cooking inside plastic is a no-go for me. It’s totally up to you.
- Brown the ground beef on the stove (or as you prefer).
- Potato cubes. The smaller they are, the more tender they will be. I chose to leave the skins on and it was great, you could remove a portion, but I wouldn’t do it completely.
Put these items + your cream of mushroom soup, onion and seasonings. Stir.
- Cook over high heat for 3 hours. If you needed to simmer, I imagine 5-6 hours would be enough.
- When finished, add your broth and stir, then pour the noodles and gently dip them into the liquid. This will take another 30 minutes to become tender.
The last step is to add the cheese and sour cream, stir and cook for 20 more minutes so that everything melts. Then serve!!
Please note that there are 3 cooking times. The initial time, 30 minutes for the noodles, and an additional 20 minutes to melt the cheese and all together.
Just for reference it would be a total of about 4 hours high. I usually always recommend the low setting for all recipes, but this one doesn’t seem to matter.
Hamburger Crock Pot Recipes Looking
for busier cheap crockpot recipes for your family?
- Our crockpot burger help recipe is similar but without the cheese or
- Slow cooker scalloped potatoes are a great holiday side dish.
- If you’re looking for more slow-cooked ground beef recipes, we’ve got them too!
- And stews like our pie de pastor with ground beef are amazing
- Many more easy slow cooker recipes are here.
potatoes.
You can see some of our favorites here. The simpler, the better I say, and comfort food is where it is, especially during fall and winter.
What is the best slow cooker?
I say it really depends on the size of your family and how much you want to spend on a cooking pot.
There are 5 of us and I like my 6 quart Pioneer Woman slow cooker better. You can see it above, it’s super pretty and the lid locks too, which is a plus.
Yes, I
- also have some pressure cookers and they have a slow cooker feature, but among all my 101+ Instant Pot recipes I NEVER use that feature.
It does NOT work well. Stick to your “old-fashioned” pot for these.
Is it safe to leave a slow cooker on all day?
Well, let’s forget about the episode This is Us for a minute when we answer this. 😉
Yes
! It’s technically safe to leave the slow cooker on and go about your day as long as you’re using the appliance properly.
Crockpot burger pot
pot
Nutrition information, including saturated fat and calories, is calculated using the recipe card itself and is not tested for exact accuracy.
Print the recipe and make it my friends and enjoy!
