Hamburger Soup

At a glance

What stands out: While it may sound rather ordinary, hamburger soup is a flavorful crowd-pleaser that’s straightforward to mix. With meat, potatoes, and veggies, it’s a one pan meal that you can leave on the stove to simmer until you’re ready to eat.

How long it takes: about 1½ hours
Equipment you’ll need: large pan or Dutch oven
Servings: 8

Classic Hamburger Soup

Good plain eating. With lots of hearty vegetables and a rich tomato broth, hamburger soup is rich and satisfying. Even fussy eaters will love it because it doesn’t have anything “strange” in it. There are no unusual or hard to find ingredients in this soup, just common economical vegetables like potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion, and ground beef.

Reliable for family dinners. You’ll want to get a pot of hamburger soup simmering on your stove today. The rich aroma will fill your home and have your family asking, “When’s dinner going to be ready?” Serve this homey soup with fresh bread, warm cornbread muffins, from-scratch naan, or from-scratch Parker House rolls. We love that it’s not fussy about time. Hamburger soup can simmer on the stove until you’re ready to eat.

Good choice for a “Meal Train”. Show someone you care by showing up with a pan (or resealable container) of hamburger soup. It’s reliable for that family with a new baby, someone who’s recovering from surgery, or a neighbor who needs a little love. Pretty much everyone likes it and it reheats well.

What goes in

• Ground Beef: Ground turkey is good too, as well as other types of ground meat. We do love a lean ground beef for this recipe, though.
• Veggies: For this hearty soup you’ll need onions (just a regular ol’ yellow onion will work!), celery, and carrots. Try to cut them all roughly the same size. This soup is chockfull of lighter vegetables (it’s kind of a sneaky way to slip in veggies!).
• Potatoes: We like russet potatoes for this recipe because they hold up pretty well in the soup. Yukon golds or red potatoes are fine, too.
• Beef Broth: Low sodium is preferable, so that you can control the amount of salt in the soup.
• Tomatoes: A combination of canned diced tomatoes and tomato paste give this soup lots of tomato flavor. If you can get low-sodium, all the better.
• Seasonings: This soup doesn’t need much! Just garlic, salt, pepper, and a dash of sugar to balance the acidity of the tomatoes. Fresh chopped parsley stirred in before serving adds fresh flavor. If you don’t have fresh, dried will work, just add it with the other seasonings instead of waiting until the end.

How it comes together

Get ready. This soup is seriously straightforward to mix. You’ll need a sharp knife, a cutting board, and a Dutch oven or soup pan. It will take about fifteen minutes to get the soup going, and about an hour to simmer the soup.

Prep the veggies. Wash, peel, and chop the onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes. You’re on your way to rich soup.

Sauté the meat and veggies. Brown a pound of ground beef in the pan, breaking up large clumps. Drain the beef if there’s lots of grease. Put the onions, celery, and carrots in the pan with the beef, and cook until they start to soften up. Add the garlic and tomato paste, and stir it around for one more minute.

Add the remaining ingredients. Pour in the broth, add a can of tomatoes, a pinch of sugar, and a cup of water. Stir well.

Simmer. Bring the hamburger soup to a boil, turn down the heat, and let it simmer until the vegetables are nice and tender. Give the soup a stir now and then just to make sure everything’s okay. When it’s time to eat, stir in the parsley, test the seasoning, and holler out, “Soup’s on!”

Slow Cooker Instructions

It’s straightforward to adapt this recipe for your slow cooker. Simply brown the hamburger in a skillet, and add it to your crockpot along with the rest of the ingredients (except the parsley). Cover, and cook on High for four hours, or on Low for eight hours, or until you’re ready for dinner. Add parsley immediately before serving.

Straightforward Recipe Variations

Hamburger soup is so versatile. Here are a few suggestions for you but feel free to experiment (which is just another way to say use what’s in your pantry) and come up with your own special recipe.

• Use any type of ground meat: turkey, sausage, lamb, pork, venison, or ground sausage. If the meat has a lot of fat, drain it after browning. (If you’re looking for a meatier, stew-like recipe, try our cowboy stew with ground beef, bacon, and smoked sausage.)
• Add cheese. Garnish each serving with shredded cheese. If you’re a cheese-lover, be sure try this chunky cheeseburger soup. You’ll love it!
• Potato substitutes: Make your hamburger soup with macaroni or with barley instead of potatoes. The macaroni/barley will absorb some of the liquid so you’ll end up with a thicker soup, or you can add more broth if you want. You may want to try our beef barley soup, with tender chunks of beef. Another option is to substitute sweet potatoes for the regular potatoes.
• Bulk up the veggie count with cabbage, spinach, or kale, chopped or shredded. A straightforward way to add vegetables is to stir in frozen peas or corn right before serving.
• Low carb/keto: Omit the potatoes and carrots. Add mushrooms, browning them with the ground beef, and add spinach, kale, or chard.
• Not a fan of soup? Try from-scratch Hamburger Helper or American goulash, both one pan meals. We love these oven-baked porcupine meatballs, too.

Keeping leftovers

Refrigerate: Hamburger soup is great leftover! We do a happy dance when we can look forward to a nice bowl of soup for lunch the next day. Store leftovers in the fridge for up to three days.

Freeze: Unfortunately, this soup does not freeze well because the potatoes have an unappetizing texture when thawed. If you’d like a soup that freezes well, try our cabbage roll soup which is somewhat similar.

Reheat: Put soup into microwave safe bowls and heat in the microwave in 30 second intervals until warmed though, stirring each time. Larger portions can be reheated on the stovetop over medium low heat.

Free Meal Plan

Interested in a weekly meal plan that includes this recipe? Take a look at our Meal Plan #12 or Meal Plan #81. You’ll find a wholesome recipe for each weekday plus a categorized grocery list. Let us do the planning for you this week! We add a new meal plan weekly.

Browse Meal Plans

• Yield: 8
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 1 hour 15 minutes
• Total: 1 hour 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb. (16 oz.) lean ground beef (see note)
• 1 large onion, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
• 4 stalks celery, diced (about 1 ½ cups)
• 3 to 4 carrots, sliced (about 1 ½ cups)
• 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
• 4 cups unsalted beef broth
• 3 large potatoes, cubed, 4 to 5 cups (about 2 lbs.)
• 2 cans (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained (no salt added, if possible)
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley (or ¼ cup chopped fresh parsley)

Method

1. In Dutch oven or large pan, over medium high heat, brown ground beef, breaking up clumps; drain if desired.
2. Add onion, celery, carrots, salt and pepper. Sauté five minutes.
3. Add garlic and tomato paste, cooking and stirring until fragrant, about one minute.
4. Add broth, potatoes, tomatoes, water, and sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, turn down to medium heat and simmer, uncovered, for one hour, or until vegetables are tender.
5. Stir in parsley, check seasoning, adding more salt and pepper, if necessary, before serving.

Notes

Slow cooker directions: Brown the hamburger in a skillet, and add it to crockpot along with the rest of the ingredients (except the parsley). Cover, and cook on High for four hours, or on Low for eight hours, or until you’re ready for dinner.

Substitute any ground meat for the beef, such as turkey, lamb, chicken, sausage, venison, or ground sausage.

Optional add-ins : macaroni, barley, frozen peas or corn, shredded cabbage or kale, spinach, green beans, etc.

Garnish with shredded cheese, if desired.