Add variable to Django request object in Middleware (once)

Question

class CustomMiddleware:
    def __init__(self, get_response):
        self.get_response = get_response


    def __call__(self, request):

        response = self.get_response(request)

        request.variable = 1

        response = self.get_response(request)

        return response

This works but it it processing the request twice. I am unsure of how to set this variable after the view has been processed (for every view), only once. process_template_response is not a valid option because it will not work with every view. Is there a better way to do this?