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!!!)
This was so delicious it was everything you said silky velvety & lucious – the taste was awesome my boys absolutely loved it we will definitely make this again coming from an excellent cook myself – it was really great thank you
Do you ever add any heat? Cayenne? White pepper? Also, have you ever canned your soup? How did it turn out?
Hi Angela…you could add some chilli if that appeals…I would freeze this…I don’t do a lot of canning. Thanks! N x
Why are we browning the meat aggressively? I’ve never head that before in lines with cooking. What does this mean? I just yelled at it to hurry and brown and not sit and sizzle and tosses it roughly back into the pot when I turned the meat over. Hoping that was aggressive enough
hahahah
LOVE your comments !🤣
Yup! Be aggressive, keep those baby’s in tha pan until they beg to get out, shove ‘em around and throw 5hem back in when it is tim3 lol
Hi Nagi, I made this last night, delish! I only used half a cup of wine, a half cup of mixed green & yellow split peas, splashed in some Worcestersauce & kept the rest of the recipe the same. I cooked it in the pressure cooker for an hour. Really super, thank you 😁
You’re welcome! N x
Made this soup (for the carnivores in the family) alongside your mushroom soup (for the vegetarian), and both were hits! Used red wine and followed the recipe exactly, except I had to cook my potatoes a while longer since I apparently can’t measure 2/3″ cubes correctly. Thank you for a hit recipe everytime!
You are welcome! N x
Can you cook this in a crockpot?
Yes just transfer to the crockpot after you reach the step where you have added the liquids at Step 9 and it is bubbling gently. You need high heat to brown the meat so cannot do that unless your crockpot has a searing function. N x
Not really a comment but a question or two.
I have extra Prime Rib. Could I use this for the meat?
Is this a thick soup? The picture looks like beef stew which is thicker.
Made this for dinner tonight & wow what a Great soup. Will be a staple in our house. Great flavors and I used Dark Horse wine , was Awesome. Do have your crusty loaf of bread. Thank you so very much . I’ve been cooking for over 40 years ,💖 Love it.🖒
This is my favourite soup recipe!! My partner doesn’t normally like soups but this one he smashes right through! I had made it several times without the mushrooms but just tried it with the addition of the mushrooms and it is even better ! Love all of your recipes!
Another winner Nagi!!! I’ve been waiting for the weather to cool off so I can start making soups again and this was the first on my list!! I used red wine and it was so rich and flavorful. Thank you!!
I am SO glad we stumbled onto this recipe!! It has quickly become one of our absolute favorites! What would you recommend as far as increasing the amount of broth? We all love the broth so much that it runs out too quickly and by day two of the soup, it’s really just the chunky stuff! Thanks!
Hi Marley, you can scale the recipe up by clicking the servings and all the ingredients will scale up for you, just leave the beef and vegetables the same amount without scaling. N x
Is there a crock pot recipe
Made this soup and yummm!☺️Just received your papaya recipe the lady who complained about your recipes just doesn’t know what she’s missing!! Love your re ipes
Awesome soup! Made it tonight and it was sooo delicious. Thanks Nagi!
The best vegetable beef soup ever!
The wine threw me a bit as well. I remained calm and it was so delicious. I think I will look around a bit and see what other delicious food I can find on this website.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Roxie, I hope you try my other recipes and love them too! N x
Can this recipe be converted to slow cooker method?
Hi Marica, you need this gently simmering so it reduces, it’s not suitable for the slow cooker as written sorry! N x
Could you add Pearl barley to this recipe? How could it be done?
Hi Michelle, you could and here’s how I would do it: increase the water to 2 cups & add the barley in the last 40 minutes of cooking to ensure it’s cooked through by the time the soup has finished. N x
I’m making this again for the 3rd time tonight (and 3rd week in a row). My family absolutely loves it 🥰
Had some stewing beef in the freezer and wasn’t sure what to do with it. This soup was delicious I love the flavor the wine added. I didn’t have all the veggies but just substituted with what we had. I will definitely make it again!