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It’s one of those days when you get home late from work and the family wants to eat ASAP.
You check the fridge and there is some ground beef (possibly from leftovers) in the fridge, a bag of frozen vegetables in the freezer, some macaroni in the pantry and a few canned goods. Takeout might seem like the only option, but in less than 45 minutes, you can throw together a homemade soup the family will love.
Few things warm the heart, soul and body like a bowl of hot, steamy soup. Many soup recipes require a long simmer time before serving, but this easy Beef and Macaroni Soup from the Spend With Pennies website takes only 35 minutes from prep time to dinner time. It’s tough to get delivery that fast, right?
In the recipe post, creator Holly also refers to this dish as “Cowboy Soup” and said she likes it because the ingredients are simple and many people already have most of them in their kitchen.
Here’s the rundown of the basic ingredients you’ll need to make Spend With Pennies’ Beef and Macaroni Soup:
- Ground beef (choose between raw beef, which will need to be browned, or leftover cooked ground beef)
- Diced tomatoes
- Tomato paste
- Elbow macaroni (if you don’t have elbows, another short pasta such as fusilli or shells are fine)
- Diced onion
- Frozen mixed vegetables
- Beef broth
- Oregano
- Dried basil
- Worcestershire sauce
- Optional: other fresh vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, celery, etc. Holly recommends putting in any fresh vegetables before the pasta to make sure they cook through before serving.
The actual recipe is only four steps long and that includes cooking the ground beef, if necessary. Holly’s directions make it easy to multitask to get dinner on the table quickly for a hungry crew.
Like many soups, this recipe tastes great the next day for leftovers. You can even freeze it in Ziploc freezer bags, according to Holly. However, she does recommend cooking the pasta separately from the soup if you know you’ll have leftovers or plan to freeze it. Keeping the pasta in the leftover soup will cause it to soak up a lot of the broth and make for a mushy next-day meal.
Our guess, though, is that there won’t be anything left in the pot at the end of the meal. Enjoy!
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