Ground Beef Vegetable Soup With Meat Stock For Full GAPS

This ground beef vegetable soup is a hearty pot of browned beef, soft carrots, celery and fresh tomatoes in homemade beef meat stock. Onion cooks in butter first, giving the soup a savory base before the vegetables and liquid go in. The finished bowls have plenty of meat, with small vegetable pieces you can gather on the same spoon.

You start with two pounds of ground beef and four cups of prepared stock. That makes four substantial servings rather than a thin vegetable soup with a few pieces of meat. Keep the carrot and celery slices about a quarter inch thick so they soften during the covered simmer.

I start a pot of meat stock first thing in the morning so our family can drink it or have soup during the day. What goes into that pot changes with the budget and what is available. Having the stock ready is the part of that routine that made GAPS doable for us. For this soup, measure four cups of the finished, strained stock before starting the onions.

Use the separate beef meat stock recipe and have the liquid ready. The other homemade ingredient is unsalted sweet-cream butter. Preparing those ingredients happens before making this pot of soup.

What You Need

Ground beef: Two pounds give this soup its generous meat portion. Break it into small chunks as it browns. You want pieces that will be easy to eat with a spoon, rather than a few large lumps that stay joined in the middle.

Onion and butter: Chop one peeled yellow onion and cook it in two tablespoons of the prepared butter. Medium heat gives the onion time to become translucent. Stir every few minutes and lower the heat if the butter or onion is darkening before the pieces soften.

Carrots and celery: Wash and trim two carrots and four celery stalks. Cut across them into quarter-inch slices. Pieces of a similar thickness finish more evenly, which is useful when the vegetables share one pot and one simmering time.

Fresh tomatoes: Weigh one pound of fresh tomatoes, remove the seeds and chop the flesh. This version uses fresh tomatoes rather than canned diced tomatoes. The GAPS foods-to-avoid list includes canned vegetables and fruit, so fresh tomatoes are the choice for this pot.

Beef meat stock: Measure four cups of finished stock after straining. The linked recipe starts with raw meaty short ribs, bay and peppercorns, and allows salt as an optional seasoning. Make it without the optional salt when preparing stock for this soup, which already has two teaspoons of sea salt.

Seasonings: Use two teaspoons of natural sea salt and half a teaspoon of ground black pepper. Half a teaspoon of dried thyme and a quarter teaspoon of dried oregano are optional. Choose plain herbs, each with a single ingredient, and add them with the beef if you are using them.

How To Make Ground Beef Vegetable Soup

1. Soften The Onion

Heat the butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook for about ten minutes, stirring every few minutes to keep it from sticking. The pieces should soften and become translucent rather than staying opaque and crunchy.

Keep an eye on the bottom of the pot as you stir. A thin browned patch is different from a dark, burnt layer. Adjust the heat before the onion catches, especially if your pot holds heat strongly.

2. Add And Brown The Beef

Leave the onion in the pot and add the ground beef, sea salt, black pepper and any optional thyme and oregano. Break the beef apart with a spatula as it cooks, turning the chunks so more of the meat touches the hot pot.

Continue until the outside of the beef begins browning. It will finish cooking after the stock and vegetables are added, so this first step does not need to cook every piece through. Keep the pieces small and loose enough to stir through the soup.

3. Prepare The Vegetables

While the beef browns, slice the trimmed carrots and celery into quarter-inch pieces. Seed and chop the fresh tomatoes if you have not already prepared them. Have the four cups of strained beef meat stock ready beside the pot.

Check the thickness of the larger carrot slices before adding them. A thick end piece can stay firm after the thinner slices are soft. Cutting it to match the others is easier now than trying to find it in a finished bowl.

4. Add The Stock And Simmer

Add the celery, carrots, prepared stock and chopped tomatoes. Bring the soup to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce to medium-low and cover the pot. Continue simmering for about twenty minutes, or until the carrots are soft and the beef is cooked through.

Keep the liquid simmering rather than churning at a rolling boil. Lift the lid to check near the end. Press a carrot slice with a fork; it should yield easily instead of snapping with a raw crunch. Check a larger beef piece too, since the initial browning was only the beginning of its cooking.

If the carrots are still firm, continue simmering and check again. Their texture is the useful endpoint. Different carrot sizes and a pot that has only just returned to a simmer can need more time than a timer alone suggests.

5. Ladle And Serve

Stir before ladling so each bowl gets meat, vegetables and stock. Divide the pot into four generous servings. The tomatoes soften into the liquid while some pieces remain visible among the carrot and celery slices.

Serve the soup warm. There is no separate thickener or flour in this recipe. Its substantial texture comes from the amount of beef and vegetables in the four cups of stock.

Where This Fits In GAPS

This browned beef and vegetable soup fits Full GAPS after its ingredients, including butter, tomatoes and seasonings, have been introduced. It is not presented as an early Intro soup. The browning step and whole celery pieces are part of this recipe’s preparation.

Dr. Natasha’s 2020 Gut and Physiology Syndrome includes fresh meat, carrots, celery, onion, tomatoes and homemade meat stock. Here the stock is a prepared ingredient. Briefly cooking ground beef in water would not make the separate meat stock that this recipe calls for.

The linked beef stock starts with raw meaty bones and connective tissue and cooks for about three to four hours. Measure the strained liquid for the soup. A long-cooked bone broth is a different preparation, so use the meat stock linked here when gathering the ingredients.

For a dairy-free option, replace the two tablespoons of butter with two tablespoons of an introduced animal cooking fat, such as beef fat. The beef meat stock and the remaining measured ingredients have no dairy ingredients. Keep the butter version labeled as containing dairy.

This recipe contains vegetables, so it does not fit No-Plant GAPS. For Ketogenic GAPS, consider the carrots, tomatoes and serving size within your own meal plan rather than assuming any beef soup fits that variation. Removing several ingredients would change this particular pot of soup.

Serving And Storage

The onions cook for about ten minutes, then the beef needs time to begin browning. After adding the vegetables and stock, bring the pot to a simmer and allow about twenty minutes of covered cooking. Vegetable preparation can overlap with the beef browning, but preparing the stock is a separate job.

For a bigger household, the card’s 2× setting makes eight generous servings from four pounds of beef and eight cups of stock. Use a pot with room for the vegetables as well as the liquid. A larger batch will take longer to heat, even though the carrot slices stay the same thickness.

Divide leftovers into shallow, heat-safe containers and refrigerate promptly. Keep them covered once cooled, and freeze portions if you are saving them for later meals. Portioning the soup also makes it easier to warm the amount you need instead of reheating the entire pot.

When reheating, stir through the meat and vegetables so the portion warms evenly. If the chilled stock has set into a gel, it will loosen as the soup heats. The vegetables should still be soft; you do not need to keep cooking them for hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does The Beef Need To Be Fully Cooked Before Adding Stock?

No. Begin browning it with the onion and seasonings, then finish cooking it in the covered soup. Break up the large clumps before adding the liquid so the meat stays distributed and is easy to check near the end.

Why Are My Carrots Still Firm?

Check their thickness and whether the soup has actually been simmering. The quarter-inch slices need about twenty minutes in the covered simmer, with more time if they are still firm. A carrot that yields easily to a fork is a better endpoint than the timer alone.

Can I Leave Out The Dried Herbs?

Yes. The thyme and oregano are optional. The onion, beef, tomatoes, salt and pepper still season the soup. If you include the herbs, add the stated half teaspoon of thyme and quarter teaspoon of oregano with the beef.

Why Use Unsalted Stock?

The soup already includes two teaspoons of sea salt. Preparing the linked stock without its optional salt lets you keep that amount consistent instead of adding it to a strongly salted liquid. Measure the finished stock after straining.

Is This The Same As The Bone-In Beef Soup?

This pot starts with ground beef and ready-made meat stock, then cooks the sliced vegetables in the soup. A soup that starts with meaty bones has a different sequence and a much longer cooking job. Use the ground beef method here when those are the ingredients you have ready.

Recommended Equipment

Use a large stainless-steel or enameled cast-iron stockpot with a lid, a spatula for breaking up the beef, a knife and cutting board, measuring spoons, a jug for the stock and a ladle. The pot needs room for two pounds of beef and all the vegetables as well as the four cups of liquid.

Have shallow storage containers ready if you are saving part of the batch. The stock preparation uses its own pot and strainer; this soup begins with that strained stock already available.

More Homemade Soup

For a different ground-beef flavor, dill pickle ground beef soup uses fermented pickles. If you would rather shape the beef into meatballs, Italian wedding soup with meatballs and spinach has its own complete recipe.

My upcoming Stock-Day Planner is a one-page plan for what goes into each pot, timing and storage. Watch the WFLI shop for it if preparing stock ahead would help you get soups like this onto the table.