Easy Beef & Vegetable Soup

Easy beef and vegetable soup is the kind of soup that warms a kitchen on a cold afternoon and feeds a family for two days. Stewing beef goes in cubed and slowly tenderizes over an hour and a half of gentle simmering, while potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions release their flavor into the broth.

The browning step is what sets the foundation for the whole pot. Searing the beef on all sides in melted margarine creates the fond on the bottom of the pan that flavors every cup of broth that follows. Skip this step and the soup tastes thin and one-dimensional.

Adding the cabbage at the end is a deliberate choice. Cabbage cooks down fast, so adding it at the start would turn it into mushy ribbons by the end. Twenty to 25 minutes of simmering gives you cabbage that’s tender but still has structure and a hint of sweet bite.

The vegetables sliced uniformly is the small detail home cooks often skip. Same-size pieces cook at the same rate, giving you a consistent bite throughout the bowl. Mixed sizes mean some pieces are mushy and some still firm.

The water-only base may seem stingy compared to recipes that call for stock. But two hours of simmering beef and vegetables in plain water creates its own broth, and the result tastes purely of beef and vegetables, not whatever was in the boxed stock.

Pro Tips

• Use stewing beef like chuck or round. Tenderloin gets stringy in long simmers and isn’t worth the price.
• Trim all visible fat before browning. Beef fat in long-simmered soup pools on the surface and turns greasy.
• Add a bay leaf or two with the water for a subtle herbal backbone.
• Salt at the end, not the start. Long simmers concentrate salt, and adding it early can over-season.

Variations

• Swap potatoes for barley or egg noodles added in the last 30 minutes.
• Add 1 can of diced tomatoes with the water for a slightly more acidic soup.
• Stir in 1 cup of frozen peas or corn at the end for added color and sweetness.