Slow Cooker Cheeseburger Soup! The HEALTHY Version!

A CHEESEBURGER without the GUILT of a BUN?!?! Sign me up! 

Cold weather is finally hitting us. The past week the sun has barely been out and school work has picked up big time. Midterms in grad school are not even close to being the same difficulty as undergrad. Needless to say, my fiance and I have been in the mood for some real comfort food. However, just because I need something to make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside doesn't mean I want to look big and bulky on the outside (although, an occasional Chinese food run won't kill us right? :) )

I found a few cheeseburger chowder recipes online and I adapted them to make them healthier, cheaper, and less time consuming! The aroma of the soup reminds me of a ma and pa coffee shop that has soup of the day. You can't really get more of a comfort food smell than that!

Prep Time: ~30 minutes     Cook Time: Slow Cooker 4-6 hours on low

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tabelspoon Garlic (1 Tbs with Celery and Onion, 1 Tbs with Slow Cooker)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 medium celery ribs, chopped
• 1 pound lean ground turkey (93/7)
• 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour 
• 3 cups chicken broth (fat free, low sodium, no msg)
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk (fat free) 
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika 
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Worchestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 8 ounces cubed cheese (I used Velveeta 2%)
• Additional cheese for topping, if desired
• Could also top with bacon, tortilla chips, sour cream, etc if you wanted to be a little less healthy 

Directions: 

1. Heat olive oil in a medium sized skillet, add celery and onion (diced to your preference), and garlic. Cook until tender (~10 minutes) 
2. Spray slow cooker or use a liner, add celery, onion, and garlic mixture to slow cooker 
3. In the same skillet brown turkey and then add to slow cooker 
4. In a bowl, mix whole wheat flour and chicken broth (I heated mine on the stove for about 5 minutes because the whole wheat flour wasn't mixing in very well, heat seemed to do the trick) 
5. Pour flour and chicken broth mixture into the slow cooker 
6. To the slow cooker add: rest of ingredients except for Velveeta cheese (and topping cheese) 
7. Stir mixture and turn on low for 4-6 hours (some recipes only cooked for 2 hours but that defeats the purpose of a slow cooker meal to me) 
8. 30 minutes before serving add Velveeta cheese 
9. Top with your favorite toppings! 
10. Pin, Tweet, Comment, and Share this recipe with your friends! :) 

Nutrition: 

Per Serving:

Calories 201

Carbs 16

Fat 4

Protein 26

Sodium 873

Sugar 10

My Opinion: 
Using whole wheat flour made the soup a little runnier than I was expecting but it was still really good! I don't think I will change the flour type or amount in the future just because I really liked the flavor this time. It was already really filling and I don't want to add more carbs. This is way lower in fat than I was expecting! :) Which of course makes me happy! Even with Velveeta cheese in there it is NOT horrible for you. I tried using just half the amount of Velveeta cheese but ended up with the full 8oz for thickness and flavor. Next time I would personally add more paprika and mustard, but the fiance says that would be too much of a mustard flavor for those who don't put mustard on their sandwiches. Overall, it was easy to make and really filling! Definitely comfort food approved.

Dude Approved? 
My fiance gave this an 8.5/10. He would prefer less celery, more meat, and a thicker base. BUT given the fact that all of those changes would make it less healthy, he wouldn't change it next time! He is excited for left-overs tomorrow! :) 

As always please share it with your friends and please leave me your feedback/questions!

Have a positive, happy, healthy, weekend! :)