Yesterday may have technically been the first day of Spring, but when I took my dog out last night before we went to bed, I looked up to see that it was SNOWING. Yeah, so I’m still over here making hot soup because I’ve got a chill that I can’t seem to shake. I decided to make a Beef and Cabbage Soup this week because I’m taking advantage of post-St. Patrick’s Day cabbage sales and I’ve kind of been craving red meat lately. I love combining beef and cabbage because it has this awesome ability to fill you up without weighing you down. This soup is filling, but still surprisingly light, similar to my Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry.
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Use Up Leftover Vegetables
Another reason I love this recipe is that it’s the perfect catch all for leftover vegetables that you may need to use up. I kept this base recipe super simple (and it’s still delish), but there are a number of other vegetables that I think would go really great in this soup, like celery, potato (small cubes), green bell pepper, or carrots. BUT, I would limit it to adding just 2 or 3 to avoid the pot getting too full.
What Type of Tomatoes Can I Use?
I took advantage of canned “stewed” tomatoes for this recipe because I love their subtle sweetness and herb-infused flavor. These are quite common in grocery stores in the U.S., but I’m not sure if there is something similar in other countries. If not, I would substitute a large can of whole peeled tomatoes with juices, and perhaps double the herbs and add a small dose of brown sugar to the soup.
Looking for a vegetarian cabbage soup? Try my classic Cabbage Soup recipe.
Beef and Cabbage Soup
Servings 6 about 2 cups eachIngredients
- 1 yellow onion ($0.32)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.16)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.26)
- 1 lb. ground beef ($5.99)
- 5 cups cabbage, shredded (about 1 lb.) ($0.29)
- 2 15oz. cans stewed tomatoes ($0.98)
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp dried basil ($0.05)
- freshly cracked black pepper ($0.07)
- 6 cups beef broth* ($0.78)
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.06)
- 1 lemon ($0.32)
- 1 handful fresh parsley ($0.25)
Instructions
- Finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Add both to a large soup pot with the olive oil and sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft (about 5 minutes). Add the ground beef and continue to sauté until browned. If using a higher fat content beef, drain the fat once the beef has browned.
- Add the shredded cabbage, stewed tomatoes (with juices), oregano, basil, some freshly cracked pepper (I like it peppery, so about 20 cranks of a pepper mill), the beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Stir everything to combine.
- Place a lid on the pot, turn the heat up to high, and let it come to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to low and allow it to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the cabbage is very soft.
- Taste the soup and add salt if needed (I did not add salt, but you may need to depending on the type of broth you use). Use a spoon to break any larger pieces of tomato into smaller pieces. Squeeze about 1 Tbsp of lemon juice into the soup and add a handful of chopped fresh parsley. Stir to combine, taste once more and make adjustments if needed, then serve.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Beef and Cabbage Soup – Step by Step Photos
Finely dice a yellow onion and mince two cloves of garlic. Add them to a large soup pot with 2 Tbsp olive oil and then sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft (about 5 minutes).
Add one pound of ground beef and continue to sauté until it is fully browned. If you’re using a higher fat content beef (15% or higher), you may want to drain the fat off after browning. I used 90% lean, so there wasn’t really anything to drain off.
Add two 15oz. cans of stewed tomatoes (with their juices) and about 5 cups of shredded cabbage. This was half of a small cabbage that weighed about 2 lbs. total (so about one pound was used for the soup). Also add 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/2 tsp dried basil, and a healthy does of freshly cracked pepper.
Add 6 cups beef broth and a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Stir everything to combine. Place a lid on the pot and turn the heat up to high. Let the soup come to a boil, then once boiling, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the cabbage is very soft.
Once it’s done simmering, use a spoon to break up the larger pieces of tomatoes into smaller bits (they should be quite soft and easy to break apart). Give the soup a taste and add salt if needed.
Squeeze about a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice into the soup and add a handful of chopped fresh parsley. Stir to combine, give it one last taste to check to needed adjustments, and then serve. :)
Eat up!
This was my second soup and once again, soooo delicious. Next time I think I will use sweet italian sausage for some deeper flavor.
Your a bald faced liar, I cannot get my cabbage to be cooked in 30 minutes. What kind of cabbage are you getting soft in 30 minutes? Other then that its a good recipe.
Ricky, achieving different results from a recipe as someone else does not make them a “bald faced liar.” There are thousands of variables in the process of cooking, any of which could have altered your results. Without having been there to watch your process, I’m not sure why your cabbage took so long to cook. A quick google of “boiled cabbage” shows that most recipes recommend only about 15 minutes to cook cabbage, so a 30 minute simmer should have been plenty to soften your cabbage. For better results next time, I suggest cutting your cabbage into smaller pieces, or increasing your heat slightly to provide a slightly stronger simmer. Best of luck.
I followed the recipe and my cabbage had no problem cooking in time. It came out delicious and tender!
I decided to use lean stew meat instead of ground beef and it turned out great! I left the meat, tomatoes, onions, and broth to cook for about 90 minutes before adding the cabbage so the meat could get tender and the cabbage wouldn’t turn to mush. Even my 1 year old and 4 year old loved this dish! This is only 228 calories per serving and it still filled us all up!! Hearty and delicious!
This soup was wonderful and even worked for the diet in on. Thank you so much for this recipe. It really hit the spot after a hard day working!
I love this soup (and so does my husband – BIG win!), but it makes so much! Can leftovers be frozen?
Could this recipe be adapted to the crock pot?
Yes, this would probably work nicely in a slow cooker. I’d do the onions and beef in a skillet, then once the beef is browned, toss that and everything else into the slow cooker. I’m not sure how long it would take, though. I’d need to experiment with that to find out. :)
We ended up doing this completely by accident. I’m sometimes a bit skeptical of your serving sizes, so we planned to double the recipe. Problem was, it just wasn’t going to fit in our pot. So we finished cooking the meat (we substituted ground turkey) and the onions in the skillet, then moved everything to the crock pot. We actually had to remove a little bit of the liquid for it all to fit, even then. We put it on low overnight, so somewhere around 8-10 hours. It turned out so irresistible we actually had it for breakfast!
This soup is so delicious! Thanks for the recipe! It’s so simple and easy to make yet the flavor is really multidimensional. I cooked a cup of barley on the side and put a heaping scoop in each bowl before ladling in the soup. Yum!
This plus a baked potato (repeat daily) made my Passover meals something to enjoy!
I made this on Sunday and rationed it so it fed me thorough the week. All I can say is DELICIOUS and NUTRITIOUS at the same time – one of the best cabbage recipes I have ever tried! Thanks, Beth :-)
Made this for the second time today., so obviously a keeper. Easily adapted to keto by using either fresh tomatoes or a lower carb product such as Raos marinara, and a little less onion. The entire pot contains only about 10 carbs.
My family recipe book has a beef vegetable soup made with beef bones; cabbage, tomato and onion are essential parts.
This soup is a quickie version that warms the soul on this chilly APRIL day.
This soup is Awesome!! Made it over the weekend and it was a hit!!!! This was one of the best soups I have found in a long time!!! Was Perfect for the snowy, cold Saturday!!! Thank you so much Beth!!!!
I made this and my husband loved it. He ate the whole batch in two days
Another winner, Beth, and much more than the sum of its parts. This is a great use of leftover cabbage, and all of the other ingredients are pantry staples. Thank you!
I made this yesterday and it came out amazing. This is one of the best cabbage recipes yet. The only one I think I like better is your Egg Roll Stir Fry (I think that’s the name.
This recipe is great!
Do the stewed tomatoes break up a bit as it cooks?
A little bit, but you’ll need to use your spoon to split them up into smaller pieces.
Thanks, I’m sorry I missed your note about that in the recipe