Mom's Homemade Vegetable Soup

My mom makes this soup and so do I. I thought we did it exactly the same way until we compared notes when I was making mine for the blog. I’ve made a few adjustments over the years without even knowing it. I’m sure you will make your own adjustments to my recipe. That is what cooking is all about.

I actually used a nice pot roast to make my soup. I cooked it the night before (slow roasted in the oven with potatoes and carrots) and used the leftovers for the soup. You can do that with any kind of beef roast. I haven’t tried it with chicken, it would probably be different, but good. When I was newly married I couldn’t afford a pot roast. So I would make this same soup with a pound of ground beef that I browned. It was delicious. I still do it that way on occasion, simply because we like the flavor.

Let’s talk a bit more about the beef used in the soup. You can use cooked leftover roast, hamburger that has been browned or a raw roast if you are going to cook your soup all day. It tastes best if you are using a raw roast to at least brown both sides in the pan in a little bit of vegetable oil before you add the other ingredients. I have been known to take a raw chuck roast, dump in the rest of the ingredients and let it cook for hours, it tastes great. You can also put it all in a crock-pot. In other words, it would be difficult to ruin this one.

Ingredients:

Beef-I used about 3 cups of cooked leftover pot roast with the pan juices. It made a very meaty soup. You can use more or less meat, whatever you prefer or whatever you have.
½ medium head of cabbage, chunked into pieces
2 potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
1 large bag of frozen mixed vegetables (you can use canned veggies, or fresh ones…frozen is easier)
1 cup V8 or tomato juice
Approx. 7-8 cups water

In a large pan (soup pot) put the beef, cabbage, potatoes, and frozen vegetables. Add water just to the level of the other ingredients, add the tomato juice or V-8. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover. If your meat is cooked, this can be done in about an hour, but I really prefer cooking this for several hours to let the flavors blend. If your meat is raw, it will take several hours. You want to cook it until the meat is very tender and falling apart. If you use a raw roast, use 2 forks to separate the meat into bite-sized pieces before serving. Salt to taste. Enjoy.