Homemade Vegetable Soup

Looking for an Easy Vegetable Soup Recipe Like Grandma Used to Make?

As a kid, I used to love my mother's homemade vegetable soup. In the fall and winter it brought comfort and even years later when I made it for my husband, he quickly developed a taste for it as well.

With simple, inexpensive ingredients my mother's homemade vegetable soup was very easy to put together. Although she had no written recipe for her soup, I followed her around as she made it one afternoon many years ago and made notes of the ingredients and quantities so that I could replicate her recipe.

Below you'll find her homemade vegetable soup recipe from my childhood as well as other recipes from across the internet that may also suit your tastes.

About My Mother's Homemade Vegetable Soup

Actually a Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup

My mother made this vegetable soup in the fall and winter mostly. Some fresh vegetables were harder to come by and thus some of the vegetables were canned. The advantage of course, was that the preparation and cooking time was reduced. I've written the recipe to conform to exactly how she made it.

This homemade vegetable soup recipe includes beef; it's not a vegetarian dish. It should probably be more accurately described as a homemade vegetable beef soup. However, if you choose to leave out the beef it would obviously be more vegetarian friendly although it would still have the beef broth!

Either way, this is an affordable and easy soup to put together. If you're looking for a chicken vegetable soup recipe or some other variety, you can look further below on this page.

The Tools You'll Need to Make this Homemade Vegetable Soup

The tools you will need to make this homemade vegetable soup are:

an 8 quart stock pot

a cutting board, vegetable peeler and knife

a pressure cooker if you choose to follow the recipe strictly

a can opener

It doesn't get much easier than that!

The Ingredients

Nothing exotic here, you'll find all of the ingredients at the local grocery store. The recipe will easily feed a family of 4 to 6.

4 medium sized potatoes (peeled/chunked)

3 carrots (sliced)

1 sweet green pepper (chunked)

1 medium sized yellow onion (chopped)

1/4 head of green cabbage (shredded)

1-2 stalks of celery (sliced 1/4-1/2")

1 red delicious apple (peeled/chunked)

1 turnip (chunked)

1- 14 oz can whole kernel corn (drained)

1- 14oz can green peas (drained)

64 oz V8 (or other brand) 100% vegetable juice

1.5 lb. beef chuck roast

one can beef broth or 2 cups water with dissolved beef bouillon

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp. oregano

Salt to taste.

My Mother's Easy Vegetable Soup

Her homemade vegetable soup recipe

The meat can be prepared however you prefer, but my mother used a pressure cooker for her homemade vegetable soup and indeed, it produces a very tender meat.

Place the chuck roast in the pressure cooker with either one cup of beef broth or the water with dissolved beef bouillon. Cook for 30 minutes. Remove any fat and cut into bite sized pieces and reserve broth.

Meanwhile, peel and chunk vegetables, the apple, slice the celery, and shred the cabbage. Add to the stock pot.

Pour in vegetable juice and remaining one cup of beef broth (or water with bouillon) and bring to a full boil. Stir in seasonings and reduce heat to medium.

Cook for 1 1/2 hours. Add meat and reserved 1 cup broth during the last 30 minutes.

As kids we had a bowl of this soup accompanied by saltine crackers and a slice or two of cheddar cheese.