Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was McDonald’s Cheeseburger Recipe. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.  The original recipe was submitted by reader Kris.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by reader Kris, who submitted it wayyyyyy back in May. I’m not kidding when I tell y’all that we have a backlog, so if you’ve submitted a recipe and we haven’t made it yet, that certainly doesn’t mean we aren’t going to. Be patient – it’ll happen one day. Or not. You’ll just have to wait and see.

I worked at McDonald’s as a teenager, and to this day when I go into a McDonald’s (or, more accurately, drive through), the onions-and-pickles smell makes me nostalgic.

(And then I thank my lucky stars that I no longer work there. I worked there for three years, and can’t believe I made it that long. On the other hand, I think every kid should be required to work in the service industry for at least a year. It might cut down on the number of ASSHOLE CUSTOMERS out there.)

So I was all for giving this casserole a try, even though I don’t eat fast food burgers any more because every time I consider it, I think of the “pink slime” stories and my whole body just says “UM, NO.” (No, I’m not providing a link. You’re ON THE GODDAMN INTERNET, do your own search. I don’t want to have to look at that shit again.)

I don’t eat fast food all that often, really (except for the occasional Egg McMuffin), but when I do it’s usually something from the poultry side of the menu (I KNOW, I KNOW, caged, factory-farmed chickens, shot up with hormones, living terrible, miserable lives, I DIDN’T ASK YOUUUUUUUUU.)

Okay, let’s do this. Your ingredients:

Lean ground beef, chopped onion, chopped dill pickles, ketchup, yellow mustard, American cheese, an 8 oz. can of crescent rolls, milk, and sesame seeds. Not pictured: water.

Regarding the chopped dill pickles: the recipe calls for 1/4 c. chopped dill pickles, and when I bought pickles at the store I grabbed one of those big jars of the huge dill pickles because they were the SAME price as the much smaller jars. What’s that about, I ask you? It only took me one of those dill pickles to get 1/4 c. of chopped pickle.

I love pickles. I can’t make a decent pickle to save my life, but I’ve always got a jar or two of pickles on hand. Dill, bread ‘n butter, sweet gherkins, I love ’em all. (I do make a mean sweet pickle relish.)

This is a pretty simple recipe (you know how I love that!) First, brown your ground meat and onion.

You’re also supposed to add salt and pepper to taste, but I spaced on this part. I don’t think it made a difference, honestly. Salt and pepper are overrated. Unless I’m having a salt craving, and then it’s like “WHY SO STINGY?”

“My nipples and I would like to know if you’re EVER going to make something that doesn’t have onion or chocolate in it, so that the kitties can partake. Would that be so much to ask?!”

That’s my foster kitty Livia. She and her nipples are supporting 7 (yes, 7!) 2 week-old kittens at the moment. My hat is off to Livia, because she’s making it work even though I’m ready and willing to step in and bottle feed if the need arises. They’re fat and sassy little things, and Livia is doing a bang-up job. You go, girl!

Drain the fat off your browned meat and onions. I’d show you this part, but I didn’t get a picture of it. Imagine a whole mess of browned meat (and onions) in my fancy-bitch collapsible colander, which is awesome. My only gripe is that it doesn’t come in red or yellow, so it doesn’t really GO with my kitchen, but that’s a minor gripe. It’s not like I really decorate with it (let us take a moment to guffaw over the idea that I “decorate” with anything), it sits in the cupboard unless I’m using it, so that’ll just be our secret, the way the colander doesn’t match my kitchen colors.

Throw your drained, browned beef and onions back in the pan and then toss in your chopped dill pickles, water, ketchup, yellow mustard. Mix together well.

On a side note, Kris mentioned that the measurements on these ingredients is really more of a guideline. If you are a particular fan of pickles or ketchup or whatever, go ahead and toss in more. It’s all up to you.

Spread your meat-and-other-stuff mixture in the bottom of a 9×9 pan (or if you don’t have a 9×9, use an 8×8. That’s what I used.) Cover with slices of American cheese.

Clearly I really wanted to get it all well covered with cheese. Hey, I like cheese.

Then take the crescent roll dough and pinch it together the best you can to form a crust to cover the entire pan. I ended up overlapping the dough in the middle.

Yeah, I know. Kinda ugly. Make small slits in the dough to allow steam to escape. Brush milk over the dough, and then sprinkle generously with sesame seeds. On a side note, I just want y’all to know that I know that McDonald’s cheeseburgers do not have sesame seeds on the buns. But I like sesame seeds, so I used them. McDonald’s cheeseburgers start with pink slime, too, so I guess we’re not being 100% authentic here.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes.

Kinda looks like a giant cheeseburger, doesn’t it? Check out that cheese, bubbling up from the side.

And here it is, scooped out onto a plate.

It’s impossible to take a really good picture of any casserole.

The verdict? I liked it. I liked it A LOT. Fred liked it, too, although he was hesitant to give it the full two thumbs up because it’s not the healthiest thing in the world. I bet it’s healthier than the actual McDonald’s cheeseburger, amiright? We are absolutely going to be eating this again – Kris had mentioned that she doubles everything to make a 9×13 pan, and I was wishing I’d done that, too. We had leftovers for dinner the next night, and it was even better than when it was fresh from the oven. Two thumbs up from me, one and three-quarters thumbs up from Fred.

Thanks for the submission, Kris!

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:
Because I am all about full disclosure you need to know that my 19-year-old son works at McDonald’s. This means absolutely jack shit to me, but it may matter to some of you (Amanda). We’re just not fast-food people anymore, but I do love a cheeseburger. And rumor has it that this recipe could do the trick.  I’m in, but I’m guarded because you know, casserole.

Another disclosure: We were HUNGRY and ready to eat! Rick and I were scrambling to get this thing in the oven so we would know whether or not we had to order pizza.

I put Rick to work browning the ground beef.  Pretty hard to fuck that up, right?

I went to work chopping those damn onions. I am just like Rick on this subject. We like onions in recipes, but you’re never going to catch me eating a raw one on purpose. I wanted these bad boys to be small because I know how we are. That’s one of those clear plastic mats that I’m cutting on. They suck.
I finally gave up and decided to use the electric mini chopper so I was sure those onions would not be heavy on our tongues. We are a bunch of pussies. Sigh.

Here, you don’t need to see everything I put in it one single item at a time. Just know that I put in all the shit that the recipe called for and as you can see, I stirred that shit.

A made a decision to change the recipe. I had bought a two pack of crescent rolls so I decided to do a top and a bottom bun. Somebody that wasn’t me opened this bad boy up because I’m kind of afraid of them. I will do it if I have to, but if someone is available, it’s their job.

Those man hands are really Rick’s! He was really in a hurry and ready to kill me about this time. I was dawdling.

Conehead.

I par-baked the bottom crust until it was light golden brown. With my oven it was 6 minutes at 375 degrees. Then I dumped my fixings in it. We decided to stay true to the recipe when it came to the “guts” of the casserole (this ain’t no Burger King up in here). 

There’s a reason that the cheese on the bottom right is missing a chunk, but the reason is so stupid that I’m not even going to tell.

Roll the top crust crescent roll dough over the top and pinch those holes closed.  And then add a few slits for steaming. Which, I suppose, would have worked just as well if you didn’t bother pinching those perforations, but what the hell do I know?

This is what it looked like. Rick was snapping my picture.  As you can see, I have good veins. You could also probably see that I completely forgot to add the sesame seeds.  And, for once, I had them!  

I didn’t get a good picture of this, but it was delicious. Seriously. Not only is this one a keeper, but it’s definitely going into rotation. Everybody in the house loved it. ALL FOUR PEOPLE.  Miracle. A motherfucking miracle.

The leftovers microwave beautifully.  I was surprised because I expected rubbery consistency, etc., but it did great.  I had some for breakfast!

Winner, winner, winner!!!!