"Hamburger" Soup

This is a "hamburger" soup in the sense that it uses ground beef as its protein, not in the sense that it tastes like a burger! What follows is largely Spend with Pennies' great recipe, but somewhat modified to better fit my family's preferences and make it a proper soup. (It was somewhat stew-esque as originally conceived.)

When I looked the original recipe up I was mainly looking for a way to stretch a package of ground beef since it was going to be a while before I was able to pop to the store for groceries. This recipe certainly does that, but it's definitely worth making just for how delicious it is. If you give it a try I hope you like it as much as we have!

"Hamburger" Soup

(8 servings)

Ingredients

450g / 1lb of ground beef

1 medium onion (chopped)

1 stalk of celery (chopped)

5 cloves of garlic (minced/crushed)

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

Black pepper (to taste)

Parsley (to taste)

5 cups of broth*

2 1/2 cups of frozen peas 'n carrots

540ml / 18oz can of diced stewed tomatoes**

1 cup of water

1 medium potato (cubed)

3 teaspoons of light soy sauce***

2 bay leaves

Salt (to taste)

Sour cream (to garnish)

Parmesan (to garnish)

Chili flakes (to garnish)

*I used beef broth since I had it on hand, but I imagine vegetable or chicken broth would work nicely too.

**I usually have some garlic 'n onion tomatoes in my pantry, but use what you got!

***The original recipe called for Worcestershire sauce here, but I haven't had that in my pantry for over a decade at least, and almost never used it when I did. Use what you got!

Directions

1) Place your soup pot over medium heat. Once it's hot throw in the beef, give it a stir, and then follow up with the onion and celery, sautéing until the onion begins to soften and become translucent. Drain the excess fat if there is any, if not carry on to step two!

2) Throw the garlic until the pot and sauté a couple more minutes.

3) Stir in the tomato paste, pepper, and parsley and sauté for another minute, stirring constantly.

4) Add the broth, peas 'n carrots, diced tomatoes, water, potato, soy sauce, and bay leaves, bring everything to a boil, and then cover and reduce the heat to simmer the soup until the potato has reached your preferred tenderness. (I think with the size of my potato pieces it took about 15 or 20 minutes.)

5) Give the soup a taste, add salt if necessary (it wasn't for my tastes), and make whatever other adjustments you feel necessary to optimize the flavor.

6) When served my husband likes this soup with a good sprinkling of parmesan and chili flakes. My preference is a dollop of sour cream, sometimes the chili flakes too. A nice hunk of baguette obviously wouldn't go awry either of course! Serve with whatever you like, just enjoy!