In honor of January being National Soup Month, I am going to feature some soup recipes this month, and I will begin this month’s worth of recipes with one of my all-time favorite soups: Hamburger-Sausage Soup. This recipe is based on a recipe from my beloved Betty Crocker cookbook called Hamburger-Vegetable Soup. I can’t remember when I tweaked this recipe (by adding some smoked sausage or kielbasa to it), but it had to have been decades ago because I remember serving the soup to my (now-grown) children. All I know for sure is that I tend to make this soup quite often during the winter. So, now… Without further ado, here’s the recipe for Hamburger-Vegetable Soup from Betty Crocker:
Hamburger-Vegetable Soup
An easy supper treat — serve in mugs, with toast triangles, a fresh fruit salad and warm Gingerbread.
1 1/2 pounds hamburger
3 medium carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 medium stalks celery, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 large potato, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
2 medium onions, chopped (about 1 cup)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon bottled brown bouquet sauce (Is this even still available?)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes
Cook and stir hamburger in Dutch oven until light brown; drain. Stir in remaining ingredients; break up tomatoes with fork. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer just until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.
6 SERVINGS (ABOUT 1 1/2 CUPS EACH)
There you have it: Betty Crocker’s recipe for Hamburger-Vegetable Soup, and now for the tweaks I do to turn it into my Hamburger-Sausage Soup! First, I add a package of either smoked sausage or kielbasa. I tend to use the all-beef kind, but this is a personal preference. In addition, I tend to use a can of diced tomatoes instead of the whole tomatoes called for in Betty’s recipe (I guess I just don’t like having to “break up tomatoes with fork”.) AND I often use Italian seasoning (either homemade or store-bought) instead of just the dried basil leaves called for in the recipe. Because I love veggies, I tend to add more than the recipes, AND I utilize my Crockpot! I figure that the condensation created during the long, slow (on low) cooking of the soup takes care of the added veggies.
Oh! Speaking of veggies… As I was consuming the last bowl from a recent batch, I thought of a different vegetable that would be very tasty in this soup: green beans! I can see myself adding a jar of home-canned green beans to a batch of soup next winter — assuming that I actually manage to can the green beans I want to grow in this year’s garden!
I hope you give this recipe (either the original one or my tweaked version) a try, and, if you do, I’d love to hear what you thought of it. Because I’m always interested in trying new recipes, please feel free to share your favorite soup recipes with me. Who knows… I just might feature it in a future “Tasty Tuesdays” post — with your permission, of course! Bon appetit!