Bacon Cheeseburger Cups

So the boy and I are doing this keto diet. I've never done a diet like this before and I think I may just die without carbs. But I'm giving it a shot. Now, the ketogenetic diet (keto for short) is low carb, high fat, and high protein. Not really the way I'm used to eating, but I figure this is a good way for me to get creative. So tonight I got it in my head to do something I've never done before.

I've seen little bacon-cupped dishes all over the internet (*cough* Pinterest *cough*), but I've never bothered to try any of them. They seemed a little gimicky to me and way too high fat. I figured somebody somewhere had to have done this little meal, especially if they are doing the keto thing, but I could not find any iteration of bacon cheeseburger cups that were made with bacon cups and didn't involve biscuits.

So I looked up a biscuit-y cheeseburger cup recipe and I looked up recommendations on how to make bacon cups. It all ended up a little messy, but delicious.

The bacon cup recipe recommended that you use the outside of a cupcake pan lined with foil. This
works well to make the cups a little bigger and to keep the bacon from sticking to everything.

I had never done this before and I was using the cheapest bacon in the grocery store, so my cups were flimsy and
messy as opposed to the pretty lattices you see everywhere else. Hopefully practice makes perfect on this one.

The finished cups were not as cup-like as I would have wanted, but came out well
enough (I think). I baked them at 400º for about 10 minutes.

I put the bacon cups into the muffin tin so I could fill them and put them back in the oven.

To my ground beef I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, mustard, and cheddar cheese.

I mixed all the ingredients together.

Browning the meat is important, I don't think they would tasty burger-y enough just baked.

I scooped the meat into my bacon cups. I didn't have enough bacon cups for all of my burger, so I lined some cups in foil.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on each cup and into the oven! I kept the oven at 400º and just put them in for ~5 minutes.

Just after I pulled them out of the oven, I was still concerned about the structural integrity of my bacon cups.

After they set for a moment, I took each cup out with a spoon. They stayed together surprisingly well!

I put a little mustard and some chopped roma tomatoes on top of each cup and placed them on
lettuce leaves. The crispness of the lettuce and tomato balanced the grease nicely.

All in all, I'd say it was a successful experiment. Next time, I don't think it's necessary to put cheese in the burger meat itself with the cheese topping on top, and I'd love some caramelized onions and more mustard in the meat. The bacon cups will get better with practice and higher quality bacon. I found this to be a really satisfying meal, though!