A hearty Vegetable Beef Soup with melt-in-your-mouth slow cooked chunks of beef, potato and vegetables simmered in a herb infused savoury broth. You’ll love how the broth of this beef soup recipe is slightly thickened so it’s like gravy and has extra flavour from a secret ingredient!
Vegetable Beef Soup
So many beef soups are watery and dull. Not this one!!! The thing that sets this beef soup recipe apart from the rest is the broth. It’s slightly thickened so it’s more like a thinnish gravy. It’s infused with herb flavour and also gets an extra depth of flavour from the secret ingredient: red wine. Or beer or stout. (They’re all good)
It’s not about boozing up our soup! It’s about adding complexity and character to the soup broth flavour without simmering for hours up hours like we do with Beef Stew and Pot Roast.
Without the wine, the broth still tastes very, very good.
With the wine, it’s stellar! (And in care you’re concerned, the alcohol gets cooked out, just leaving behind flavour.)
This Beef Soup is like beef stew in soup form – except faster to make!
What goes in Vegetable Beef Soup
Here’s what you need.
-
Stewing beef – anything economical, in small bite size pieces (remember, we’re making a soup here, not a stew)
-
Red wine, stout or guinness – all of these work great here. Red wine gives it a classic beef stew flavour, Guinness or stout will give the soup a more intense, deep flavour like Irish Guinness Stew. I use wine most frequently because I always have some on hand, and because I prefer not to just use part of a can of beer that I wouldn’t choose to drink!
How to make Beef Soup
The key step here is to brown the beef well – aggressively is the term that I use. This adds a ton of flavour to the beef itself and the broth, from the brown bits on the bottom of the pot that dissolves into the broth.
I like to sauté the mushrooms in butter and add them towards the end – but this is optional. Because golden brown buttery mushrooms vs mushrooms just simmered in the broth? There is no contest! (But really, it is optional 🙂 )
Fall-apart slow cooked beef!
I promised you fall-apart beef, and fall apart beef you shall get. And you will see just how tender the beef is in the recipe video below using the most ridiculous method – chopsticks of all things!!
I know, I know, it’s soooo Asian.
But right at that moment while I was filming, it was the first thought that came to me as the easiest way to show it on camera! 😂 I mean, how else can I pry a piece of beef apart using one hand??
What Beef Soup goes with
There’s a ton of veggies in this soup, and you could add even more into the soup. Green beans would be ideal, but they were extortionately overpriced on the day I shot this and I just couldn’t do it.
So it’s an ideal meal-in-a bowl that doesn’t need anything more. But I’m pretty sure no one would say no to a side of quick Cheesy Garlic Bread!!! Or try one of these soup dunkers:
Soup Dunkers
Also, this soup just gets better with time and freezes 100% perfectly. So make a double batch! ~ Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Vegetable Beef Soup (Fall apart beef!)
Ingredients
- 1.5 tbsp olive oil , separated
- 500g/1 lb stewing beef , cut into 1.75cm / 2/3" cubes (Note 1)
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper
- 1 onion , chopped
- 3 garlic , minced (1 tbsp)
- 2 celery , cut into 0.8 cm / 1/3" slices
- 3 carrots , cut into 0.5 cm / 1/5" thick slices (halve larger ones)
- 4 tbsp flour
- 2 1/2 cups (625ml) beef broth/stock , low sodium
- 1 1/2 cups (375ml) dry red wine, Guinness beer or stout (Note 2)
- 1.5 cups (375ml) water
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp thyme dried
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 2 potatoes (any), cut into 1.5cm / 2/3" cubes
Buttery mushrooms (optional):
- 1 tbsp (15g) butter or oil
- 200g/ 6oz small mushrooms , quartered or halved
Instructions
- Heat 1 tbsp oil until very hot in a large, heavy based pot over high heat.
- Pat beef dry with paper towels, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Brown beef aggressively in 2 or 3 batches, adding more oil if needed. Remove browned beef into a bowl.
- If pot looks dry, add a touch more oil.
- Add garlic and onion, cook for 2 minutes.
- Add carrot and celery, cook for 2 minutes or until onion is translucent.
- Stir in flour, then slowly pour in beef broth while constantly stirring.
- Add beer, water, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme, stir well. Then add the beef back in.
- Cover, adjust heat to medium low so it's bubbling gently. Simmer 1 hr 15 min or until beef is pretty tender.
- Add potatoes and peas, simmer for a further 20 minutes without the lid. Add cooked mushrooms in the last 5 minutes.
- The soup is ready when the potatoes are cooked and beef is very tender (see video).
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste (I like lots of pepper in this!).
- Ladle into bowls. Sprinkle with parsley and serve with crusty bread if desired. Try quick Cheesy Garlic Bread or super easy Irish Soda Bread!
Buttery Mushrooms (optional):
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes until browned. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Recipe Notes:
- Red wine - any dry, full bodied red wine. Cab Sauv and Merlots are ideal.
- Guinness Beer and Stout are dark beers, labelled as such on the cans. You should find these at most liquor stores. Use some, drink some - or tip the whole can in an simmer for longer with the lid off!
- Non alcoholic sub - add 400g/14 oz can of crushed tomato, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce. This will add alternative flavour to compensate.
Nutrition Information:
Originally published May 2019. Updated for housekeeping matters March 2020, no change to recipe.
More chunky, hearty soups
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Nagi.
Do you have a recipe for a braised beef tendon? Whether it is cantonese/chinese style or the japanese style that you can find in an izakaya
This was just what I was looking for….I needed a base for a Beef Barley Soup. In stead of adding potatoes and peas, I added barley and cooked it for another 40 minutes….hmm, hmmm good! Thank you so much for your great recipes and videos.
Nagi if I cook this in the slow cooker should I reduce or leave out some of the liquid
Read that Shay said hers had a bitter taste mine also I individually tried the meat and vegetables and they were fine the next day it was less bitter and on the 3rd day not bitter at all in fact it was delicious I used Guinness that’s not the problem because I’ve used Guinness in your delicious Irish stew will I cook it again yes but I’ll eat it on day 2 or 3 and freeze the rest
Huge favorite of my family. I add a shake of red wine vinegar at the end with the parsley. Thank you for another family favorite.
You are my go to for recipes. Have tried so many and always a winner with my husband and two small kids.
We are trying this soup tonight. Cold, rainy day here. Thank you for your amazing recipes.
Hi, I loved this recipe the first time I made it and I’m about to make it again and will be making double. My question is do I double all ingredients or are them some things that should not be doubled?
If I could have your input it will be very much appreciated.
Also just want to say that I have been making many of your recipes for some time now and I’m so impressed and grateful for you and the way you present is wonderful. You leave no stone unturned and you make cooking so much fun and I find myself so much happier when I’m making your recipes. I love cooking and cooking with your amazingness guiding me is such a joy!!! Thankyou!
I just made your Vegetable Beef Soup for my husband who is the most finicky eater ever! IT WAS AMAZING! He said it was the best he ever had! (This comment came after turning his nose up a few times as he passed by me in the kitchen as I prepped!)
Hi everyone,
I’ve made this twice and I always seem to have a bitter tasting soup – is that normal? I’ve followed the recipe to a T and I’m not sure what I could be doing wrong. Any one else have this issue? Could I use sugar to sweeten? thnx 🙂
Doubled the recipe and giving this to grandpa for a Fathers Day gift. Nothing better than home cookin! The wine does bump up the flavor nicely. My favorite beef soup recipe ever! Thank you!
Oops! Forgot to say in my last comment that this recipe calls for celery which my husband and children (influenced by my husband) don’t eat. So, what I did was to blend them and add them into the mix. Haha! No trace of celery but I know that my family is getting the nutrition from it. 🙂
I made this last week. It was great. We had enough for dinner and next day’s school lunch and WFH lunch.
While I cooked this, my 12 year old daughter made the No knead soft dinner roll (which was one of the recommended sides). They turned out really good (I have to say that my 12 year old is into baking and cooking).
Coincidentally, my sister cooked this the next day. My mum doesn’t eat beef so my sister substituted beef with lamb. We gave some of our leftover No Knead Soft Dinner Rolls. They liked it.
Hi Nagi ive made this a few times and its a winner with my lot! Just wondering if you were to convert this to a slow cooker to cook once you have browned the beef and onion /garlic etc, how long would you cook it for on low? Trying to do this so I can prep mid morning but leave to the slow cooker to do the rest while we are out at sport!
Absolutely delicious! Used a bottle of so-so wine (doubled the recipe) and it was unreal how tasty it was. Added some cauliflower and broccoli that was in danger of being binned. My partner said it is the best beef and vegetable soup she ever tasted!
This was amazing! Really well balanced and so delicious even my picky vegetarian 9 y.o. devoured it. I have tried beef stews / soups before and all have failed. Thank you Nagi, I’m currently addicted to working my way through your recipes 🙂
Haven’t made this yet but I feel we’re going to love it as a family as we always do 😍
Question : For non alcoholic sub, can I use 400 g of passata instead of crushed tomatoes? Will add the Worcestershire sauce as per your directions.
We don’t like crushed tomatoes 🙈
Superb! I served it with garlic bread (excellentas well) and basked in appreciation. My only modifications were more garlic, half the flour and a bit more meat – trifling.
Thank you Nagi, this is well done!
Could it be made on a instant pot?
Yes Mercedes, that should work although you might have to simmer on the stove with the lid off at the end if it’s too thin. N x
Thank you Nagi! I am so looking forward to eat this soup.