Tag: #VegetableSoup

Posted in Soups & Stews

Garden Harvest Beef & Vegetable Soup

Posted on by simplegoodfood

There is something wonderfully practical about a pot of vegetable soup.

You don’t need a special occasion or an elaborate recipe. You need some ground beef, a handful of vegetables, a little broth, and a pot big enough to bring everything together.

This Garden Harvest Beef & Vegetable Soup is especially good for that transition from summer into fall. It makes good use of the vegetables that are still plentiful at the end of the growing season while giving us our first taste of cozy soup weather.

Use fresh vegetables from the garden or farmers market when you have them. Use frozen vegetables when that’s what you’ve got. And if you have a few odds and ends tucked away in the refrigerator, this is a great place for them, too.

That’s the spirit behind this month’s Harvest & Putting Things Back theme: enjoy what is plentiful today, and make a little extra while you’re at it.

This soup freezes beautifully, making it an easy way to put a few servings back for another day.

simplegoodfood's avatarsimplegoodfood

Garden Harvest Beef & Vegetable Soup

There is something wonderfully practical about a pot of vegetable soup.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings: 4
Course: Dinner, Lunch, Soup
Cuisine: American
Calories: 330
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 pound lean ground beef
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 medium carrots sliced
  • 2 celery stalks sliced
  • 1 medium zucchini diced
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen green beans cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 cup corn fresh or frozen
  • 1 can 14.5 ounces diced tomatoes, with juices
  • 4 cups low-sodium beef broth
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil if needed

Method
 

Brown the beef.
  1. Heat a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking it into small pieces, until no longer pink. Drain excess fat if necessary.
Add the aromatics.
  1. Add the onion and celery to the pot. Cook for 3–4 minutes, until the onion begins to soften. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.
Build the soup.
  1. Add the carrots, zucchini, green beans, corn, and diced tomatoes with their juices.
Add the broth and seasonings.
  1. Pour in the beef broth. Stir in the Italian seasoning, parsley, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce.
Simmer.
  1. Bring the soup to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat and cover. Simmer for about 20–25 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
Taste and adjust.
  1. Taste the broth and add salt as needed. If you prefer a thinner soup, add a little more broth or water.
Serve.
  1. Ladle into bowls and serve hot with crusty bread, crackers, or a simple side salad.

Notes

🌾 Make It Your Own
This is one of those recipes where the vegetable drawer gets a vote.
Try swapping in:
  • Green peas for some of the corn
  • Cabbage for some of the zucchini
  • Diced potatoes for the carrots
  • Spinach stirred in during the last few minutes
  • Mushrooms for some of the zucchini
  • Fresh tomatoes in place of canned tomatoes
You can also use ground turkey instead of beef if that’s what you have available.

🧊 Put a Little Back

This soup is an excellent freezer meal.

Let the soup cool, portion it into freezer-safe containers, label it with the name and date, and freeze.

For one or two people, freezing individual portions means you don’t have to thaw an entire pot just to have soup for lunch.

Important canning note: Although this soup is suitable for freezing, don’t assume a freezer soup recipe is automatically safe for home canning. Because it contains meat and vegetables, any version you intend to pressure-can should be based on a tested, approved canning recipe rather than adapting this recipe yourself.

That’s an important part of putting food back: preserve it in a way that’s both practical and safe.

🥄 Serving Suggestions

Serve with:

  • Whole-grain bread
  • A small green salad
  • Crackers
  • Toasted cornbread

Or simply enjoy a bowl on its own. With beef, vegetables, and broth all in one pot, you’ve already got a pretty complete meal.

Posted in Soups & Stews

Kitchen Sink Vegetable Soup

Posted on by simplegoodfood

Introduction

There are soups you make because you planned them, and then there are soups that seem to make themselves.

Kitchen Sink Vegetable Soup belongs in the second category.

It’s the soup you make when the refrigerator has a little of this and a little of that: a carrot or two, some leftover corn, a handful of green beans, part of an onion, perhaps some cabbage or spinach that needs to be used. Add a few pantry staples and some broth, and suddenly those odds and ends become a hearty, nourishing meal.

This kind of cooking has been around forever. In my family, Saturday was often soup day, and whatever vegetables were still hanging around after the week’s meals had a good chance of finding their way into the soup pot.

It’s a lesson worth keeping: you don’t need a refrigerator full of perfect ingredients to make a good meal.

❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe

  • A delicious way to use vegetables that need a home
  • Budget-friendly
  • Flexible and forgiving
  • Easy to adapt to what you have
  • Makes several meals from small amounts of ingredients
  • Freezer-friendly
  • Perfect for a chilly campground evening or a simple lunch at home
simplegoodfood's avatarsimplegoodfood

Kitchen Sink Vegetable Soup

KitchenSink Vegetable Soup is the perfect way to use up the last bits of vegetablesand planned-over ingredients in your refrigerator.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings: 6
Course: Dinner, Lunch, Soup
Cuisine: American
Calories: 225
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 medium carrots sliced
  • 2 celery stalks sliced
  • 1 medium potato peeled and diced
  • 1 cup green beans cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 cup corn
  • 1 cup diced tomatoes
  • 1 cup shredded cabbage
  • ½ cup peas
  • 6 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
  • 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
  • ½ teaspoon dried parsley
  • ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
  • ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Optional additions:
  • 1 cup cooked pulled pork chopped
  • ½ cup cooked rice
  • ½ cup cooked pasta
  • 1 cup cooked beans
  • A handful of fresh spinach or kale

Method
 

  1. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat.
  2. Add the onion, carrots, and celery. Cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables begin to soften.
  3. Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.
  4. Add the potatoes, green beans, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, peas, broth, Italian seasoning, parsley, salt, and pepper.
  5. Bring the soup to a gentle boil.
  6. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for about 20–25 minutes, or until the potatoes and carrots are tender.
  7. If you’re adding cooked pulled pork, rice, pasta, or beans, stir them in during the last 5–10 minutes, just long enough to heat everything through.
  8. Add spinach or other tender greens during the final 2–3 minutes of cooking.
  9. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
  10. Ladle into bowls and serve warm.

Notes

🧺 Kitchen Confidence
This Week’s Skill: Learning to Cook Without Measuring Everything
Soup is one of the best places to practice cooking by instinct.
Once you’ve made a few pots of vegetable soup, you’ll realize you don’t need exactly one cup of carrots or precisely half a cup of peas. You can adjust the amounts according to what you have.
The important thing is understanding the basics:
Start with aromatics. Add vegetables according to how long they need to cook. Add cooked ingredients near the end. Taste before serving.
That’s it.
And if your soup is a little thicker than you expected, add more broth. If it’s too thin, let it simmer uncovered for a few minutes.
There is a lot of room for confidence in a soup pot.

💰 Stretch Every Grocery Dollar

Soup is one of the easiest ways to turn inexpensive ingredients into several satisfying meals.

You can also stretch it further with inexpensive pantry staples like potatoes, rice, pasta, beans, or barley.

And don’t overlook frozen vegetables. They can be less expensive than fresh, require no preparation, and are an excellent way to keep a variety of vegetables available without worrying about using them immediately.

♻️ Waste Not, Want Not

This is the recipe where everything gets a chance.

That half an onion?

In the pot.

The last carrot?

Slice it up.

A little corn from the rice bowls?

Absolutely.

Some cabbage from the Rainbow Coleslaw?

Perfect.

A handful of spinach?

Toss it in near the end.

A small amount of pulled pork?

Now you’ve got a heartier soup.

The only rule is to use ingredients that are still fresh and safe to eat. “Kitchen sink” doesn’t mean “anything that has been hiding in the refrigerator too long.” 😉

🍽️ Cooking for One or Two

Six servings might sound like a lot for a small household, but soup is one of those meals that makes batch cooking worthwhile.

Enjoy a bowl for lunch or dinner, refrigerate a couple of portions for the next few days, and freeze the rest in individual containers.

That turns one pot of soup into several future meals without having to cook again.

🥣 Meal Prep Note

If you’re making this soup specifically to use up refrigerator odds and ends, gather everything together before you start cooking.

Give each vegetable a quick inspection, wash what you’re using, and chop everything into similar-sized pieces.

Then you can decide what goes into the pot first based on cooking time.

It’s a great way to practice the same mise en place concept used by professional cooks—only we’re doing it in a very relaxed, real-life kitchen.

Storage & Freezing

Refrigerator: Store cooled soup in airtight containers for up to 4 days.

Freezer: Freeze in individual or meal-sized containers for up to 3 months.

If you plan to freeze the soup, consider leaving out pasta and adding freshly cooked pasta when you reheat it. Pasta can become soft after freezing and thawing.

Reheating: Reheat gently on the stovetop or in the microwave until steaming hot.

🌾 Saturday Soup Tradition

There’s something comforting about ending the week with a pot of soup.

You start with ingredients that might otherwise have been forgotten, add a little patience, and end up with something warm and nourishing.

That’s more than saving money.

It’s a way of looking at food differently.

Instead of asking:

“What can I make with this recipe?”

you start asking:

“What can I make with what I have?”

And that’s a pretty valuable kitchen skill.