A hearty Vegetable Beef Soup with melt-in-your-mouth slow cooked chunks of beef, potato and vegetables simmered in a herb infused savoury broth. You’ll love how the broth of this beef soup recipe is slightly thickened so it’s like gravy and has extra flavour from a secret ingredient!
Vegetable Beef Soup
So many beef soups are watery and dull. Not this one!!! The thing that sets this beef soup recipe apart from the rest is the broth. It’s slightly thickened so it’s more like a thinnish gravy. It’s infused with herb flavour and also gets an extra depth of flavour from the secret ingredient: red wine. Or beer or stout. (They’re all good)
It’s not about boozing up our soup! It’s about adding complexity and character to the soup broth flavour without simmering for hours up hours like we do with Beef Stew and Pot Roast.
Without the wine, the broth still tastes very, very good.
With the wine, it’s stellar! (And in care you’re concerned, the alcohol gets cooked out, just leaving behind flavour.)
What goes in Vegetable Beef Soup
Here’s what you need.
Stewing beef – anything economical, in small bite size pieces (remember, we’re making a soup here, not a stew)
Red wine, stout or guinness – all of these work great here. Red wine gives it a classic beef stew flavour, Guinness or stout will give the soup a more intense, deep flavour like Irish Guinness Stew. I use wine most frequently because I always have some on hand, and because I prefer not to just use part of a can of beer that I wouldn’t choose to drink!
How to make Beef Soup
The key step here is to brown the beef well – aggressively is the term that I use. This adds a ton of flavour to the beef itself and the broth, from the brown bits on the bottom of the pot that dissolves into the broth.
I like to sauté the mushrooms in butter and add them towards the end – but this is optional. Because golden brown buttery mushrooms vs mushrooms just simmered in the broth? There is no contest! (But really, it is optional 🙂 )
Fall-apart slow cooked beef!
I promised you fall-apart beef, and fall apart beef you shall get. And you will see just how tender the beef is in the recipe video below using the most ridiculous method – chopsticks of all things!!
I know, I know, it’s soooo Asian.
But right at that moment while I was filming, it was the first thought that came to me as the easiest way to show it on camera! 😂 I mean, how else can I pry a piece of beef apart using one hand??
What Beef Soup goes with
There’s a ton of veggies in this soup, and you could add even more into the soup. Green beans would be ideal, but they were extortionately overpriced on the day I shot this and I just couldn’t do it.
So it’s an ideal meal-in-a bowl that doesn’t need anything more. But I’m pretty sure no one would say no to a side of quick Cheesy Garlic Bread!!! Or try one of these soup dunkers:
Soup Dunkers
Also, this soup just gets better with time and freezes 100% perfectly. So make a double batch! ~ Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Vegetable Beef Soup (Fall apart beef!)
Ingredients
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil , separated
- 500g/1 lb stewing beef , cut into 1.75cm / 2/3″ cubes (Note 1)
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper
- 1 onion , chopped
- 3 garlic , minced (1 tbsp)
- 2 celery , cut into 0.8 cm / 1/3″ slices
- 3 carrots , cut into 0.5 cm / 1/5″ thick slices (halve larger ones)
- 4 tbsp flour
- 2 1/2 cups (625ml) beef broth/stock , low sodium
- 1 1/2 cups (375ml) dry red wine, Guinness beer or stout (Note 2)
- 1.5 cups (375ml) water
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp thyme dried
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 potatoes (any), cut into 1.5cm / 2/3″ cubes
Buttery mushrooms (optional):
- 1 tbsp (15g) butter or oil
- 200g/ 6oz small mushrooms , quartered or halved
Instructions
- Heat 1 tbsp oil until very hot in a large, heavy based pot over high heat.
- Pat beef dry with paper towels, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Brown beef aggressively in 2 or 3 batches, adding more oil if needed. Remove browned beef into a bowl.
- If pot looks dry, add a touch more oil.
- Add garlic and onion, cook for 2 minutes.
- Add carrot and celery, cook for 2 minutes or until onion is translucent.
- Stir in flour, then slowly pour in beef broth while constantly stirring.
- Add beer, water, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme, stir well. Then add the beef back in.
- Cover, adjust heat to medium low so it’s bubbling gently. Simmer 1 hr 15 min or until beef is pretty tender.
- Add potatoes and peas, simmer for a further 20 minutes without the lid. Add cooked mushrooms in the last 5 minutes.
- The soup is ready when the potatoes are cooked and beef is very tender (see video).
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste (I like lots of pepper in this!).
- Ladle into bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with crusty bread if desired. Try quick Cheesy Garlic Bread or super easy Irish Soda Bread!
Buttery Mushrooms (optional):
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes until browned. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Recipe Notes:
- Red wine – any dry, full bodied red wine. Cab Sauv and Merlots are ideal.
- Guinness Beer and Stout are dark beers, labelled as such on the cans. You should find these at most liquor stores. Use some, drink some – or tip the whole can in an simmer for longer with the lid off!
- Non alcoholic sub – add 400g/14 oz can of crushed tomato, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. This will add alternative flavour to compensate.
Nutrition Information:
Originally published May 2019. Updated for housekeeping matters March 2020, no change to recipe.
More chunky, hearty soups
Life of Dozer
This is what a doggy smile looks like.
(And we’d be smiling too if we had Life of Dozer!!!)
Made this today for my lunches this week, I’ve already eaten a bowl ++ SOOOO good! I used wine not beer….
Can you use cooking wine instead of alcoholic wine? If so, how much?
NO! It is not the same! Please see the suggestions for substitutions at the bottom of the recipe.
I made this soup last night for dinner. I followed the recipe as written except I omitted potatoes and added noodles instead. I used Guinness. It was fantastic, my husband ate 3 bowls! Great recipe, thanks for sharing.
In the Vegetable beef soup( fall apart beef) can you use red wine vinegar or Grolsch beer as a substitute for the red wine or beer?
I myself use grape juice to get that extra layer of flavor and it always comes.es out amazing.
Followed the recipe exactly, left out the mushrooms (but will add the next time)
My family and I loved it! Used cabernet which created a great flavor! Will be on the dinner rotation now!
This is an amazing recipe. I made it for the first time today and it turned out wonderfully. Full of rich flavor (I used the red wine), and tender beef, thank you so much for sharing!
Amazing.
Thank you! I was nervous the beef would be tough but after I let it simmer for a while longer it was perfect and just fell apart.
Omg you are amazing this dish is a winner over and over in my kitchen I will for sure be cooking this more often
I made this delicious beef & veggie soup for my son and grandma, both of whom have trsted positive for COVID. Warm and healthy!
Made this today and it is DELICIOUS! I used cabernet and the flavor was amazing!
I made this tonight for the fourth time. It’s amazingly delicious and I’ll never make beef soup any other way! The aroma drives me crazy while it’s simmering….it’s a winner!!
I just made it lol 😂 I was meant to make beef stew as requested. Still Turns out good I omit the mushrooms.. not a mushroom fan.
I haven’t made this yet, but after watching your video, how much pepper did you add with the thyme? This looks very good and I can’t wait to try it
Hi Jim, all quantities are listed in the ingredients, I hope you try it and love it! N x
Made this tonight with Guinness & it does a nice depth of flavour! However, I had to simmer a lot longer than 1.5 hours to get the beef fall-apart tender (~3hours)! Either way, THANK YOU, Nagi, for this amazing recipe! xo
Excellent. I used Yeugling. I didn’t have 2 cans of tomato paste so I added rainbow grape tomatoes cut in half at time potatoes and peas went in. I cut water to one cup so it would be thicker.
I thought it was two tablespoon of tomato paste??
Great recipe. Very easy to make. I did add the buttered (brown) mushrooms, pan fried with a fair amount of fresh parsley. Plus a splash of Worcester sauce for kick. Just delicious. Also I didn’t have any beef broth, so I used a porcini bouillon cube. Gave it an earthiness. This is a recipe I will make again.
The vegetable beef soup is amazing. I have made it with the Guinness and also with the red wine! Thanks for your amazing recipe❤️
Just made this today and it was delicious! I added a can of diced tomatoes and a bag of frozen okra at the end as well as a small frozen bag of mixed vegetables (I love lots of veggies in my vegetable soup). The stew meat fell apart and the addition of the wine and mushrooms was wonderful.
I cooked the vegetable beef soup. This is great i will make this often through out the the colder seasons.