There’s something satisfying about making soup. More than just making something that costs almost nothing, it’s taking leftovers and turning them into something tasty and even nutritious. If you’ve cooked a prime rib, save the bones and any leftover meat and make Beef Vegetable Soup.
This is a very basic Beef Vegetable Soup recipe. It’s meant to be a baseline where you can add your own flare, use as much or as little of each ingredient based on what you have, what you like and the season. Most prime rib roasts have 2 or 3 bones so you can freeze them and wait until it’s a good day to make soup. This one is best if you make the broth a day ahead so plan accordingly.
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How to make the best beef broth for soup
Even though your meat has already been roasted, searing the bones and any leftover meat will add more depth of flavour to the broth. Either roast them in the oven for 5-10 minutes in a heavy pot until you hear the meat sizzling, or sear over high heat in a dry soup pot. Then add boiling water to almost cover the bones. Normally you would start a soup with cold water but you don’t want to add cold water to a pot that hot, it could result in an injury to you or your cooking vessel.
Add a little salt and a few bay leaves, cover and simmer on the stove top for at least three hours, or better – up to six hours. Keep an eye on the liquid level, it will reduce as it simmers and get saltier. Add a little more water if it’s reducing too much, keeping the meat mostly covered. You don’t want to water down the flavour though, that’s why I include some store bought broth to ensure you have enough liquid.
After at least 3 hours, remove all the meat and bones to a plate to cool. Pick as much meat off the bones as you can and shred/chop into bite sized pieces. You’ll be surprised how much meat you can find on leftover bones. If you have some leftover sliced beef, chop it up and add it to the shredded beef.
How to remove fat from meat broth
For the best flavoured soup, make the broth a day in advance and refrigerate the until it’s cold. If you’re short on time, put the broth in the freezer or outside on a really cold day to speed up the process. Once the fat has hardened on top, remove as much as you can. You can break the pieces off the top with a spoon and tip any broth back into the pot. I’m not gonna lie. The soup at this point doesn’t look very appetizing. That’s why there’s no picture. But it gets better.
Dice celery, carrots and onion. This is called a “mirepoix” which is a fancy word for….celery, carrot and onion. This is the standard base for most soups and stews. Feel free to chop up some of the celery leaves as well and save some for garnish. Sometimes I like to use leeks in addition to or instead of onions. Add it all to the broth along with the meat and some Worcestershire Sauce and bring to a simmer.
After about half an hour add the potatoes. When you add potatoes to any liquid, you usually need to add salt because they absorb it from the broth. Remember to taste and season periodically. The amount of salt you need depends on the sodium level in the carton of broth and how salty your roast was. Pepper can sometimes make your broth cloudy so save adding the pepper until the end.
After 15 minutes add some fresh green beans. Simmer a few minutes, then add the frozen peas. Adding the green vegetables at the end helps keep their nice colour. Once the broth has returned to a simmer, taste one last time and add pepper and more salt if necessary.
If you make Beef Vegetable Soup, please consider leaving a comment or rating below. Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
- 2-3 leftover prime rib bones with some meat
- 10 cups boiling water
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 carton beef broth about 3½ cups
- 1 onion
- 2 stalks celery reserve some leaves from tops
- 3 carrots
- 1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 2 medium potatoes
- 1 cup green beans
- ½ cup frozen peas
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Sear bones in oven safe heavy pot in oven or on stovetop for 5-10 minutes until sizzling. Pour boiling water over top to cover or almost cover bones. Add bay leaves and salt and simmer on stove top for at least 3 hours, up to 6 hours for best flavour. Add additional water if necessary during early stages of simmering to keep bones covered.
- When broth has good beefy flavour, top up with some of carton of beef broth if necessary to keep liquid level even in pot. Save some for finishing soup.
- Remove bones and pick off as much meat as possible when cool enough to handle.
- Refrigerate broth overnight if possible to allow fat to solidify on top. Or make broth earlier in the day and finish later. Using a flat spatula, remove fat from top of broth and discard.
- Return pot to stovetop and bring to a simmer. Finely dice onion, chop carrots and celery into similar sized pieces. Add to pot along with worcestershire sauce and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Peel and dice potato. Add to pot and cook for 15 minutes or until vegetables are fork tender. Add more beef broth from carton if necessary.
- Add green beans and simmer for 5 minutes, then add peas and heat only until broth comes back to a simmer. Remove from heat and serve immediately.
- Garnish with reserved celery leaves and fresh cracked black pepper if desired.
That’s great Marci!! Thank you for posting!! I would love to try making different soups!!
I always make my own soups from scratch and I am some of the more odd soups like cream of French Sorrel soup (Yummy). However my beef soups never really turned out OK and I would convert them to a stew by adding mashed potatoes to thicken them and they were really good. So having an actual recipe that I did not need to convert to my liking was really great. I made it just as is, except this is The Virus era and I did not have any green beans and so skipped them and added just the peas, as well as frozen brussels sprouts. I know, I know! I did modify it a tad. But the soup itself is awesome and thank you!
Thanks for letting me know! I’m actually making soup right now with my leftover turkey bones from Christmas!