Your favourite comfort food classic deconstructed into an easy beef and vegetable soup. It’s a quick and easy meal that’s great to make ahead of time, budget friendly, reheats well and freezes perfectly.

Serve this easy Hamburger Soup with crisp greens or some fresh bread!

Ingredients:

• 1 ¹⁄₂ lbs lean ground beef

  1 (28 ounce) can plum tomatoes, undrained
• 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped fine
• 1 garlic clove, minced fine 
• 1 (10 ounce) can tomato soup
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped finely

  4 cups beef broth
• 4 celery ribs, leaves removed and chopped fine 
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme (original recipe used less, but I love thyme)
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 
• ¹⁄₃ cup pearl barley or quinoa
• salt, to taste

Instructions:

• In a large pot or dutch oven, brown the meat and add the onions and garlic to sauté. When meat has lost its pink colour, drain off any excess fat if there is any.
• Add all remaining ingredients, turn heat down to low so soup is barely simmering, cover, and let cook for about 2 hours (even longer is fine).
• If you have leftovers, this soup freezes well. Note that it tends to thicken when cool (especially if you are adding quinoa) so I like to add a little more beef broth to it.