Hamburger Soup is a quick and easy meal loaded with vegetables, lean beef, diced tomatoes and potatoes. It’s great made ahead of time, budget friendly, reheats well and freezes perfectly.
We serve this easy Hamburger Soup with a fresh green salad and some crusty bread for the perfect meal!
I love a good soup as a weeknight meal. Hearty soups are satisfying & simple and they are loaded with vegetables and healthy ingredients! Soup is the perfect cool weather food or delicious weeknight dinner!
You can make them totally low cal like a Weight Loss Vegetable Soup, nice and hearty like a Chicken Wild Rice Soup or rich and creamy like a Slow Cooker Corn Chowder!
This Hamburger Soup is simple classic comfort food, hearty, healthy and satisfying. Perfect on a cool evening to warm your belly from the inside out.
I have to say that while we’ve always referred to this as hamburger soup, I know you guys have tons of other names for it! Hamburger soup, vegetable soup, hangover soup, poor man’s soup, bachelor’s stew… just to name a few.
Regardless of what you call it, you’ll definitely want to make it!
How to Make Hamburger Soup
A rich tomato broth is filled with ground beef, tender potatoes and vegetables. Sometimes the most simple ingredients make the best ever meals.
This hamburger soup is not only delicious, it’s easy to make with ingredients you likely have on hand.
I start with a mixture of lean beef, onion and garlic browned and drained. You can use any kind of ground meat in this recipe including ground turkey.
Beef broth is the best broth option to add lots of great flavor; I personally prefer the low sodium variety.
Hamburger Soup with Vegetables
I use a mixture of frozen vegetables to make this super easy (no chopping, no prepping) but it’s also a great way to use up any veggies in your fridge. Carrots, celery, peas, beans, zucchini… pretty much anything goes, sometimes we make this even with cabbage!
This version of Hamburger Soup uses potatoes since that’s how we always had it growing up. If you don’t have potatoes on hand (or just prefer pasta) you can add any type of pasta into this recipe!
I add an extra 1 cup of broth (or water) and let the pasta simmer until tender. Macaroni, shells and rotini are favorites to make this into a delicious and hearty macaroni beef soup!
What to Serve with Hamburger Soup
While the soup is simmering, I prepare a quick chopped salad and slice up a loaf of french bread (almost always served with Homemade Garlic Butter) for a complete meal.
If you’re lucky enough to have leftovers, this soup is great reheated for lunches all week but even better, it freezes perfectly!
I prop up a freezer bag in my little baggie holder and fill each baggie with one serving.
When I need a quick lunch, I take it out of the freezer the night before or in the morning and microwave for a perfect meal. (And then sometimes add a little sprinkle of cheese before serving).
This has been a family favorite forever!
It gets rave reviews from everyone who tries it, it’s quick and easy to make, reheats well and is versatile. The perfect soup.
This is also an excellent gifting soup.
If you know anyone that’s recently had a baby or surgery, or is just having an extra crazy week with the kids, this is the soup to drop off.
Add along a side of 30 Minute Dinner Rolls for the perfect meal!
It stretches to feed a crowd with that salad and bread and will last a few days.
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 medium potatoes peeled and diced
- 3 ½ cups beef broth
- 28 ounces canned diced tomatoes with juices, 1 can
- 10.75 ounces condensed tomato soup 1 can
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 3 cups frozen mixed vegetables or fresh chopped vegetables
Instructions
- Brown onion, ground beef and garlic until no pink remains. Drain any fat.
- Add potatoes, broth, tomatoes, tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce, seasoning and bay leaves. Simmer covered 10 minutes.
- Stir in vegetables. Simmer 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Video
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Soup
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Holly please adopt me. I may be 75yrs old but not too old to feast on your delicious meals. Love ya.
You made my day Bob!
Is it better to cook the pasta before adding to recipe? Does it taste starchy if putting in uncooked pasta?
If you prefer, you could cook the pasta ahead of time. We like adding it right into the soup. Enjoy Karen!
Hi Holly (or anyone else that may know!), can you use regular tomato soup instead of condensed tomato soup?
Sure you can!
Great recipies
Can the hamburger vegetable soup be made in a crockpot?
Yes you could make this in a crock pot. Cooking on low for 4 hours should do it!
This recipe gets 5 stars from me. Quick and easy to make and inexpensive. Full of flavour.
Thanks Susan! We are glad you enjoyed it!
Made this recipe tonight. It’s quick to make and flavor is very good!
My husband asked me to not move on from this soup recipe…. which
means he likes it a whole lot! Even rated it a 9.9! Thanks so much for posting!
A 9.9!! Thats awesome, thanks Donna! So happy we could make a recipe for you and your husband to both enjoy!
I am extremely picky about quality recipes that actually work well. So far I am two for two with being really happy with the recipe and it’s outcome!!
Thanks Rachel! We are so happy you are enjoying our recipes!
Thank you for your recipe, an alternative to spaghetti sauce I planned to make to use up 1.3 lbs of 70% lean ground beef from the pantry. It was frozen on Monday, and thawed in the fridge until today, Thursday. That means I didn’t pay for it. After cleaning and chopping a half bulb of garlic, 1/2 large yellow onion, 4 celery, shredding a quarter cabbage, and dicing 3 large carrots, I browned the meat for six minutes in my Nordicware Tender Cooker microwave pressure cooker, without the lid, and poured off about a cup of fat and other liquid. I had sauteed the onion, garlic, and Italian seasoning, then I followed your instructions, except for adding the carrots instead of potatoes, because they take long to cook. I used beef bone broth AND boiled water and a low-sodium, vegan bouillon cube, cut up, 3/4 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 tsp Annie’s organic Worcestershire sauce, and 2 cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes. It was a good use of the ground beef I had to cook, and make a savory soup.
That sounds yummy Louise! Glad it worked out for you!
Thank you – it was delicious, long-lasting, after I added a can of no-salt-added cut green beans to the finished product! After I drained the original fat, and skimmed a little that was left overnight, it was a lean, nutritious recipe, and my Dad (86) liked it – that’s the main thing! He is from the ’60’s, and appreciates simple home cooking, not fancy or ambitious vegan dishes . . . Do you have a recipe for yellow peas? I got a bag of dried yellow split peas from the pantry, and want to use fresh garlic and onion from the pantry, and a can of Hunts tomato sauce. Two recipes online call for broth, but I want to use water instead, to keep it cheap, and one Afghan recipe for dal calls for lots of different seasoning. I have ginger on hand, but don’t want to make it too spicy. Plus, the tomato paste has salt and spices added.
I’m so glad your family enjoyed this Louise! I’ve used yellow peas for my favorite split pea soup recipe.
Delicious
Thank you Judy!
Followed recipe and it was great! Very tasty and easy to make. Will definitely make again! Great soup ..
Thanks Maria! We are glad you enjoyed it!
Loved this recipe ! I had some leftover hamburger meat and the weather stinks today in NC so as a joke I Googled hamburger soup. I pretty much followed it but had fire roasted tomatoes , fresh corn,fresh carrots,frozen broccoli,canned sliced potatoes and canned green beans ( rinsed ) . Gave it some kick with seasoning plus the Italian and let it simmer away. I have thrown away so many expired cans of tomato soup for lack of recipes. This was perfect and not really noticeable definitely a keeper !
Highly recommend
Definitely a belly warming recipe for a yucky weather day! So glad you enjoyed it!
Used fresh veggies instead of frozen. Browned potatoes and carrots first because they never seem to cook thoroughly otherwise. Delicious.
Glad you enjoyed it Tami!
Making it right now !! Mmmm… Smells amazing even though I don’t have any
Worcestershire Sauce….. thought I did…..oh well ..Also I browned the hamburger
and onions in a skillet then put everything in my big roaster because I don’t have
a Dutch oven any more… I have to get a new one and just haven’t found one I like
yet. Anyway , it is in the oven at 400° and I will just let it be for about 45 min.then check it , stir it and go from there… Any advice on a Dutch oven ?? Next I am going to make the
Ham & Corn Chowder…..looks amazing . Thanks
I hope you love the soup Juniper!
My mom introduced me to this recipe. My kids love it. Any idea what the serving size is in cups or ounces? Thanks,
About a cup is a serving Wendy. I am so glad your family liked the recipe!
Haha I can just see that little one cup of soup! That would be the first scoop in the bowl at my house!
This soup has great flavor, was simple to get on the table and my husband loved it. I realized I didn’t have enough potatoes so I threw in the meager amount I had and added a half can of cannellini beans. Thanks for a great recipe.
I am so glad your family liked the recipe Cris! I love the idea of adding cannellini beans! Yum!
Amazing the way it is but my family is trying to eat lower carb so I substituted turnips for the potatoes and doubled the meat – it was awesome!! I’ll probably do it that way from now on because the turnips tasted like potatoes anyways!
That sounds like a wonderful low carb substitute Mary!
Is the nutritional values based on one cup serving size?
Slow cooker directions please
I would suggest browning the beef and adding it to the slow cooker along with the remaining ingredients. Cook on low 6-8 hours or until the potatoes are tender.
If all I have are canned vegetables
Corn green beans and diced potatoes? Would it work and still be good?
Yes, this will work! Many readers have tried the recipe with canned vegetables with success. Enjoy Hannah!