Big Mac Burger Salad Bowl (meal prep favorite)
No fast food restaurant needed! These Big Mac Bowls have all the flavors of a Big Mac deconstructed into a delicious salad bowl with the perfect low-calorie secret sauce.
This Big Mac bowl is a great way to meal prep or when you need an easy dinner to throw together. It’s very similar to my Big Mac Casserole, which is an Oh Snap Macros year-after-year reader favorite.
This cheeseburger salad has simple ingredients, layered into a bowl with juicy ground beef, crunchy dill pickles, chopped lettuce, and shredded cheese. It’s topped with a copycat Big Mac sauce to get that classic Big Mac taste right at home.
Love Big Mac everything? Then try my Big Mac Pizza with cottage cheese crust and Big Mac Sloppy Joes!
Save this recipe!
Enter your email & I’ll send it to your inbox!
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- Only 274 calories per bowl compared to a 563-calorie burger!
- 11g of carbs and 29g of protein per bowl.
- Helps make meal prep a breeze!
Ingredients and Substitutes:
These are the main ingredients and substitutions for these Big Mac Burger Bowls. See the recipe card below for the full ingredients list and instructions:
- Ground Beef: you can also use ground turkey or chicken. Or top your salad with frozen burgers in the air fryer.
- Cheddar Cheese: for traditional Big Mac flavors use cheddar chees but you can switch it up with any preferred cheeses.
Variations
- You can use any ground meat but stick with ground beef if you want the classic burger taste. I suggest adding extra seasoning if you use lean ground turkey.
- Light, regular, avocado, and dairy-free mayonnaise all work great.
- Use regular or sugar-free ketchup.
- Add any veggies your heart desires!
- Try my Big Mac Wraps if you’re craving something more like a McDonald’s snack wrap.
Dietary Modifications
- Gluten-free as written!
- How to make them dairy-free. Omit the cheese or use a dairy-free option and a dairy-free mayonnaise.
How to make this Big Mac bowl recipe (a visual step-by-step guide):
Step 1: cook the ground beef
Spray a large skillet over medium heat with nonstick spray. Add the ground beef and onion and cook to brown ground beef until cooked through and no longer pink, breaking into bite-sized pieces (image 1).
Add the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and mustard to the beef and stir to combine (image 2). Let simmer while you make your sauce.
Step 2: make your burger sauce
In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles and pickle juice (image 3).
Mix and fully combine the Big Mac Sauce (image 4).
Step 3: assemble bowl
Fill each bowl with 2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce, 100 grams of meat mixture, 14 grams (approximately 2 Tbsp.) cheddar cheese, ¼ cup (46g) Big Mac sauce, chopped onions, and additional pickles (image 5). Add any additional vegetables you’d like.
How to meal prep these burger salad bowls
This Big Mac bowl is one of my favorite meal prep recipes because eating it for multiple days in a row doesn’t get boring. Even better, it’s low carb, high in protein, and delicious.
For meal prep, I suggest adding your cooked ground beef into separate containers first (image 1). Then, add a piece of parchment paper on top of the meat (image 2). Top with lettuce, chopped white onions, chopped pickles, chopped tomatoes or sesame seeds (image 3).
Do not add the sauce until you’re ready to eat and keep it in a separate container (image 4). This prevents the lettuce from getting soggy.
When you’re ready to reheat, remove the parchment paper with the salad fixings, heat the meat, then add the salad ingredients back to the heated meat. Top with the Big Mac sauce to tie it all together.
Expert Tip!
For meal prep, use parchment paper over each layer and store dressing in a separate container. This prevents the lettuce from getting soggy from the meat and pickles.
Recipe FAQ’s
Nothing goes better with a burger than French fries and extra big mac sauce on the side! You can have one of these bowls plus a small McDonald’s fry (if you want!) and still be under the calories of one actual Big Mac. Fun fact!
Store your leftover ingredients separately in an airtight container in the fridge.
You bet! Ground chicken, turkey, pork or any preferred meat works for burger bowls.
Definitely! I would suggest making air fryer breakfast potatoes or the potatoes from my Big Mac Casserole and adding those to these bowls.
If you like this recipe be sure to check out some of our other bowl recipes:
If you make this recipe, please leave a rating and/or comment! Tag me on Instagram @ohsnapmacros, I love hearing from you!
Big Mac Bowls
📱 MyFitnessPal & MacrosFirst App Users
You can find this recipe and many others on MyFitnessPal and MacrosFirst by searching: Ohsnapmacros – Big Mac Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 lb. lean ground beef 96/4
- 1/2 cup onion chopped
- 2 tsp. yellow mustard
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- salt and black pepper to taste
Big Mac Sauce
- 1/3 cup light mayonnaise 90g
- 1/3 cup ketchup 100g
- 1/4 cup dill pickles chopped
- 1.5 Tbsp. pickle juice
For Your Bowls
- 8 cups shredded iceberg lettuce
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese 56g
- chopped white onion
- pickles
Optional Toppings
- chopped red onion
- chopped tomato
- side of fries
Instructions
- Spray a large skillet over medium heat with nonstick spray. Add the ground beef and onion and cook until the beef is cooked through and no longer pink, breaking into bite sized pieces.
- Add the garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper and mustard to the beef and stir to combine. Let simmer while you make your sauce.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, pickles and pickle juice and mix to combine.
- Assemble your bowls and enjoy!
Bowl Assembly
- Fill each bowl with 2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce, 100 grams of meat mixture, 14 grams (appromiately 2 tbsp.) cheddar cheese, ¼ cup (58g) Big Mac sauce, chopped onions and additional pickles.
Meal Prep Assembly
- Layer meat first and top with parchment paper. Top with the lettuce, onions and cheese. Either add the pickles or place on a separate small parchment paper so they don’t make the lettuce soggy. Put the sauce in the small tupperware bowl to bring on the side. Remove the salad portion and heat the meat directly in the dish and then mix your bowls. Or enjoy cold too!
Notes
- Nutritional information is an estimate and will vary with substitutions.
- Per Bowl: 2 cups lettuce, 100 grams meat mixture, 14g cheddar cheese, 58g Big Mac Sauce.
- Swap with any ground meat for a different bowl variation.
- You can also use a Thousand Island dressing in place of making your own sauce for these bowls.
I love big mac’s from mcdonalds, and this recipe was spot on. I meal prepped it for the entire week and by the end of the week, still couldnt get enough. Such a great recipe that I’ll be using forever. THANK YOU!!!
Yesss!!! That is so exciting to hear, thank you!!
leaving my first blog comment ever to say this was SO GOOD wow
Yay!!! Thank you for taking the time to leave a review too, I sincerely appreciate it!! ❤️
Any alternative for the pickles, esp for the sauce. Me and my husband aren’t a fan of pickles
If you don’t like pickles just omit them. It will change the flavor of the sauce but it won’t have the pickle taste you don’t like.
There are a lot of Big Mac Salad recipes out there and this one is the best! It’s super easy and amazing. I don’t eat fast food, but sometimes I want a treat and this is it, but it is also healthy. I do sub Greek yogurt for about half the mayo and used reduced fat cheddar, and it still tastes indulgent.
Thank you so much!!
My kids love this and they ask for it regularly. Great recipe and they actually eat some veggies so long as they are doused in that delicious Big Mac sauce!
Love that!!! Thank you!
This recipe is absolutely delicious. Paired it with air fryer celeriac root fries and it was perfect.
🥳🥳 thank you!
This is absolutely delicious. Paired it with airy fryer celeriac root fries and it was perfect.
Another winner! Great for meal prep for lunch. I add some chips for some crunch 🙂
At this point, anything from Danielle that has “Big Mac” in the title, I’m there for it. Super easy yummy! Wonderful macros, especially for while I’m in a cut.
❤️ haha, thank you!!
This is one of my FAVORITE recipes lately! So fresh, delicious and the flavors just work perfectly. I love how easy it is and requires minimal ingredients (most of which I already have on hand).
Got to love an easy meal!! Thank you!
I meal prepped 3 of your recipes this week, this being one of them and it is so good. My husband has been putting the extra sauce on his eggs in the morning! Will be adding this to the normal rotation
Yum!! So good on eggs!!
Really delicious – love having something fresh and yummy to add to my line up.