A warm hearty vegetable beef soup is all you need to feel comforted and safe on a frosty winter day. This classic soup recipe is easy to make and re-heats well, allowing you to make enough for days at a time to beat the wintry weather.
You can also use the same base recipe and tips for an Instant Pot Vegetable Beef Soup or an Instant Pot Beef Stew. If you don’t want beef, try my amazing Chicken Vegetable Soup instead!
Vegetable Beef Soup
Making a really soothing, tasty vegetable beef soup is really nothing more than combining your meat and vegetables and cooking it together until it tastes amazing. However, while you could just toss it all in a pot and let it turn into soup, there are a few extra things you can easily do to make it taste even better.
Ingredients for Vegetable Beef Soup
- Stewing meat, cut up small. You can either buy packets of stewing meat from supermarkets or ask your butcher for some cheap cuts suitable for stewing.
- Olive oil
- White onion
- Garlic
- Italian Seasoning
- One can of diced tomatoes
- Beef broth
- Worcestershire sauce
- Chopped celery
- Potatoes, preferably russet
- Frozen vegetables (whatever you like)
- Salt & pepper
How to Make Vegetable Beef Soup
The wonderful thing about making any kind of soup is that it is only as much work as you want it to be. At its laziest, you can make vegetable beef soup by combining all ingredients in a pot and simmering until tender and cooked.
However, if you donāt mind doing things in steps with a bit of layering of flavors, you can make something incredible.
- Fry your beef and onions until the beef is browned and there the onions are soft and cooked through.
- Add your garlic and cook until it is lightly browned and fragrant, followed by your Italian seasoning
- Add in all of your liquids; your broth, tomatoes, and Worcestershire sauce, and bring to a low simmer.
- Cook for 40 minutes until completely tender
- Add in potatoes and celery, cooking for 20 more minutes.
- Stir in your frozen vegetables and cook until cooked through.
How to Store Vegetable Beef Soup
After a bowl of this filling, comforting dish, you will end up with some leftovers as this is a large recipe, so how do you store it?
If it is just for a day or two, you can just portion this soup up into bowls and put it in the fridge. However, if you plan to have it later than a couple of days, you should freeze it in an airtight, freezer safe bag or container.
Because this soup doesnāt contain any cream or dairy, it freezes really well. The only thing you might notice is a layer of fat settling along the top once it is frozen, but thatās no problem ā you can just stir it back in when you reheat it!
How to Re-Heat Your Vegetable Beef Soup
Re-heating soup is one of the first things that every college student learns, but when it comes to something homemade rather than from a can, you have even more options.
- You can either zap it in the microwave for a few minutes, checking it every thirty seconds and stirring it, or just reheat it on the stovetop.
- If you go down the stovetop route, make sure you heat it up slowly over low heat, allowing it to come to temperature gently. Try to avoid boiling it if you can, as you just want to heat it through.
- Check to make sure your meat is heated completely as well ā there’s nothing more dangerous in cooking than badly re-heated meat!
Tips & Tricks for Vegetable Beef Soup
One great tip when making this soup is to look after your fond. (NEW COOKING TERM ALERT!) When you are cooking your beef and onions, the bottom of the pot will start to develop a sticky, brown crust known as fond, which is all the sugars and tasty parts of the beef and onions sticking together. Did you know that is what the brown bits were called?
When cooking your beef, take care you donāt burn this fond, as it is a layer of pure flavor. If you think it might start burning, give it a hard stir and scrape to get it off of the bottom of the pot.
After your meat is brown on all sides, you can also add just a little bit of your beef brother to start and stir it hard. This will help dissolve the fond and avoid it sticking to the bottom, bringing all that wonderful flavor back into your soup as you cook it.
The more you know, peeps! Go out and try and impress your friends with your new culinary term – and a great soup!
Happy cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
Vegetable Beef Soup
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds stewing meat cut up small
- salt and pepper
- 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup white onion finely diced
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1-2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- one 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 6-7 cups beef broth
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup celery chopped
- 2 large Russet potatoes peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 2 cups frozen vegetables
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Season the beef with salt and pepper.
- Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a large soup pot, then add in the beef and white onion, frying until the beef is browned on all sides and the onion has softened.
- Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes, until browned and fragrant. Add in the Italian seasoning and heat for 30 seconds.
- Pour some of the beef broth into the bottom of the pan and deglaze the bottom,
- Add in the rest of the broth, then the canned tomatoes and Worcestershire sauce to the pot.
- Bring to a low simmer, then reduce the heat and cover.
- Cook for 20 minutes until the beef starts to become tender.
- Add in the potatoes and celery and cook for another 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
- Stir in the frozen vegetables and cook for 10-15 minutes more until they are tender.
- Add more broth if the soup is too thick at this point. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.
- Serve.
Notes
- Cutting the stewing beef small ensures it will be tender
Nutrition
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Anita says
can I use ground beef instead of stew beef
Jackie says
Yes you can.
Glenda says
The soup is so good. The only thing I do different is to add a diced green bell pepper and some chopped cabbage…because that is the way my mom did it. Thanks for the printable recipe.
Darlene says
I made it and my family said it was absolutely delicious ššš