This creamy ground beef casserole makes a cheesy and filling dinner. The base layer is created with cauliflower, sour cream, onions, and cottage cheese. Don’t leave the cottage cheese out! It sounds a little crazy, but it’s very good.
The whole thing is topped with alternating layers of seasoned ground beef and cheddar cheese. The green enchilada sauce adds a tangy and fresh flavor, giving the casserole fun southwest style vibes.
When it first comes out of the oven you might be a little worried about how watery it looks. There’s nothing wrong with it, and you can serve it immediately, but if you let the casserole cool down it will firm back up. The second day eating this is the best!
Yields 8 servings of Creamy Beef Casserole
The Preparation
- 16 ounces cauliflower rice
- 24 ounces ground beef (80/20)
- 15 ounces green enchilada sauce
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 1/4 cups cottage cheese
- 2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1/2 cup green onion, sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
The Execution
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place the cauliflower rice into a microwave bowl then cook for 4-5 minutes until it softened.
2. Brown the beef over medium-high heat. Pour in the green enchilada sauce, then season with the salt and pepper.
3. Add the sour cream, cottage cheese, and green onions to the bowl with the cauliflower. Mix together very well.
4. Put the cauliflower mixture into a casserole dish and spread out into an even layer.
5. Top the cauliflower with half of the beef mixture.
6. Sprinkle on 1 cup of the shredded cheddar cheese.
7. Create another layer with the remaining beef, and another layer with the remaining cheddar cheese.
8. Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F.
This makes a total of 8 servings of Creamy Beef Casserole. Each serving comes out to be 439 calories, 32.1g fats, 7.3g net carbs, and 27.5g protein.
| NUTRITION | CALORIES | FAT | CARBS | FIBER | NET CARBS | PROTEIN |
| 16 ounce cauliflower rice | 113 | 1.4 | 22.7 | 9.1 | 13.6 | 8.6 |
| 24 ounce ground beef (80/20) | 1728 | 136.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116.8 |
| 15 ounce green enchilada sauce | 162 | 3.8 | 27.2 | 8.1 | 19.1 | 4.7 |
| 1/2 cup sour cream | 228 | 22.3 | 5.3 | 0 | 5.3 | 2.8 |
| 1 1/4 cup cottage cheese | 266 | 11.7 | 9.2 | 0 | 9.2 | 30.2 |
| 2 cup cheddar cheese | 990 | 81.6 | 7.6 | 0 | 7.6 | 56 |
| 1/2 cup green onion | 16 | 0.1 | 3.7 | 1.3 | 2.4 | 0.9 |
| 1 teaspoon salt | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 teaspoon black pepper | 5 | 0.1 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.2 |
| Totals | 3508 | 257 | 77 | 19 | 58 | 220.3 |
| Per Serving (/8) | 439 | 32.1 | 9.6 | 2.4 | 7.2 | 27.5 |
Creamy Beef Casserole
Ingredients
- 16 ounce cauliflower rice
- 24 ounce ground beef (80/20)
- 15 ounce green enchilada sauce
- ½ cup sour cream
- 1 ¼ cup cottage cheese
- 2 cup cheddar cheese shredded
- ½ cup green onion sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Place the cauliflower rice in a microwaveable bowl, then cook for 4-5 minutes until it is softened.
- Brown the beef over medium-high heat, scrambling it as you cook. Pour in the green enchilada sauce, then season with the salt and pepper.
- Add the sour cream, cottage cheese, and green onions to the bowl with the cauliflower. Mix together very well.
- Put the cauliflower mixture into a casserole dish and spread out in an even layer.
- Top the cauliflower with half of the beef mixture.
- Sprinkle on half of the shredded cheddar cheese.
- Create another layer with the remaining beef and another layer with the remaining cheddar cheese.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
I’m new here, but I think your calorie counts for this recipe are wrong. Shouldn’t it be 1727 calories for the ground beef, not 17.27. So the total calories would be 3417 or 569.5/serving.
Thank you for pointing that out, I’ve fixed it! 🙂
Wow. I made this today, 👍🏼 I’ve wasn’t sure how I was going to like the cauliflower rice. Well I added chopped celery, shallots, to the meat with salt, pepper, and ground cumin. After the meat was brown I added dice tomatoes and let simmer. Added lots of pepper to the cauliflower mix and put together. It was a hit. https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c… https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
That looks so good! I also like your plating 😀
Thank you. Presentation is very important. 😊
:/ mine ended up being super runny, not sure why.
When I made this last it was a bit thin when fresh out the oven, but seemed to thicken up when serving leftovers the following day.
This was sooo satisfying and exactly what I needed on this rainy night. It was a bit soupy out of the oven but I actually really liked it that way, and the flavors were great. Looking forward to leftovers!
This is, by far, the weirdest thing I have ever made. I’m not sure it’ll make it into our regular rotation, but I like the beef, cheddar, and green enchilada sauce. That combo could be used in some other recipe somewhere to be really tasty.
Do you have any recommendations for what can be used in place of cottage cheese?
Perhaps sour cream? Could also mix in cream cheese.
Hi, I am very new to this and I am loving the recipes so far! However, for something like this that says it makes 8 servings, what would a typical serving be? Is one serving about one cup?
We typically weigh our servings out based on the whole recipe, but eyeballing it should be fine in general 🙂
Hello, I keep seeing these recipes and they never say drain the meat grease. Sorry, I’m new at this as well. Should I drain the grease?
I’m not really a fan of enchilada sauce… any suggestions for a substitution? Trying to think outside of the box and my brain is not cooperating! 😀
Any type of tomato sauce would do the trick – just keep in mind it will alter carb counts!
going to try this Recipe tonight but need to make this have less protein than fat. I see that the cottage cheese bring up the protein along with the shredded cheese, anyone try this with a different cheese that might have less protein and also substitute the cottage cheese for something else?
This looks awesome! Any recommendations regarding freezing?
Just portion it out and freeze – it should freeze well like most casseroles.
What size casserole dish?
It’s a standard 9×13 casserole dish.
I was wondering if you could formulate your recipes using weight measurements vs volume measurements, it’s easy to pack too much into a cup. Example, 2 cups of shredded cheese. Thanks.
We are currently working on that. In our meal planning app we already do conversions on all ingredients/recipes, but it is taking some time to integrate this into the recipes on the website. Typically for things like cheese we use standard measurements, which is 120g (or ~4 oz) per cup.
Frozen cauliflower OK?
Yes, totally fine. Just drain any excess water when you finish cooking!
LOVE this one. My neighbor convinced me to try it a few years ago, and we have it about once a month, since then. I prefer to dip tortilla chips in it, but hubby eats right from the bowl.