My Mom’s Old-Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup is one of my all-time favorite soup recipes. It’s super simple homemade vegetable beef soup recipe and makes enough to freeze!

Can I just brag about my family for a quick sec? For my birthday, my mom took me on an amazing weekend trip to Boston … more on that later.

Then, when I got home to a to-do list the size of Mars, my sister was nice enough to make me a weeks-worth of this homemade vegetable beef soup, pumpkin pecan oatmeal cookies, and a sweet potato crust quiche for breakfasts. Am I spoiled or what?!

Don’t you just love a good soup recipe? When I think of my favorite soups, my mind immediately turns to My Mom’s Old-Fashioned Vegetable Beef Soup.

I’ve loved this soup since before I loved boys … and that started much too soon.

Since my grandpa is a farmer, we always had an extra freezer in our laundry room full of white packages of beef. We were also fortunate enough to have a mom who cooked us dinner each night.

What that meant was a loooot of slow cooker recipes or dinner. And many of them included beef roast!

One of my favorites was a big pot of homemade vegetable beef soup – it’s the perfect easy soup recipe to feed the family.

Other dinners were a rotating menu of hamburgers, meatballs, meatloaf, pot roasts, beef stroganoff, tacos … all of those classic American comfort meals.

At the time I just wanted pizza or pasta, but now I crave those childhood meals!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. beef stew meat
• 1 onion
• 3 celery ribs
• 10 baby carrots (or a couple regular carrots)
• 2 potatoes (peeled if you like)
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes (I use salt-free)
• 3 1⁄2 cups beef broth (or 2 14-oz cans)
• 2 small bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (or any cooking oil)
• 4 cups water
• 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce

DIRECTIONS:

Cut meat into small, bite-size (1/2″) pieces.
In a large pot or dutch oven, saute meat in 1 T oil on medium-high heat until all sides are brown.
Set aside on a plate.
Chop celery, onion, potatoes, and carrots into bite-size pieces.
Saute celery and onion in remaining 1 T oil until onion is golden (about 10 minutes).
Add browned beef, water, broth, tomatoes with juices, carrots, potatoes, corn, bay leaves and garlic.
Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until beef is almost tender, about an hour.
Add peas and hot sauce to soup.
Cover and simmer until beef is tender, about 30 minutes longer.
Serve and season with freshly ground black pepper, hot sauce, or crumbled saltines, if desired.