Whether you remember this delight served at the kitchen table while you were growing up or you recognize the recipe from the back of the Bisquick box, cheeseburger pie is a super-comforting, stick-to-your-ribs meal that couldn’t be easier. The recipe originally came from Betty Crocker cookbooks and became a staple at dinner tables in the ’60s and ’70s.
The concept of the pie is super easy — it’s a flaky Bisquick-based crust loaded with a mixture of cooked ground beef, cheese, and eggs. As the eggs cook, they meld with the ground beef and onions, creating a frittata-like consistency. Cheeseburger pie is forgiving, and can work well with an extra egg, not quite enough ground beef, or other ingredient changes. The dish is easily customizable, and it’s simple to incorporate regional flavors (like topping with tater tots for a Minnesota-inspired cheeseburger hotdish).
Casseroles like cheeseburger pie were a mid-century hit for a few reasons. Many women began to enter the workforce in the ’60s and ’70s, and casseroles allowed them to get a hot meal on the table without spending hours in the kitchen — or at the sink doing dishes. While we see casseroles today as an old-school idea, home chefs saw them as a nouveau, simplified way of cooking. Convenience foods were on the rise at the time. While casseroles required some work, they weren’t too far off from popping a TV dinner into the oven.
Customizing cheeseburger pie to suit your tastes
One of the best things about this old-school pie is how easy it is to switch up flavors to hit specific cravings. In the mood for a Philly cheesesteak-style pie? Swap out the ground beef for thin-sliced ribeye and top with a bit of Cheez Whiz just before serving to make a perfectly Philadelphian dinner. Prefer to give your cheeseburger pie a Southwestern flair? Add taco seasoning, chopped peppers, extra onions, a scoop or two of salsa (try making your own restaurant-worthy version at home), and serve with a slice of lettuce, tomato, and finely diced jalapeños. You can also give it a diner-esque flavor by adding chopped bacon and fried onions to emulate a bacon cheeseburger.
Another option: Sub sausage for ground beef for a delicious quiche-adjacent pie that doesn’t require you to go to battle with pie crust. You can stick with the cheddar cheese in the original recipe, or you can switch it out for a traditional Gruyère. No matter how you decide to mix it up, cheeseburger pie offers a blank canvas for tons of different flavors.
