Classic Beef and Vegetable Soup -- The First Pot of Fall

The quiet house has been a week old and I am still not accustomed to it. This is not a complaint. It is an observation, the way you observe a room that has had a piece of furniture removed: you keep expecting the furniture to be there, and your eyes go to the space, and the space has its own kind of presence. The quiet from eight-thirty to noon is not actually quiet, it is the sound of one woman moving through a house where five children are usually moving, and the absence is audible in the specific way that only absence can be.

I have been doing the things I have not had uninterrupted time to do. I reorganized the spice cabinet on Tuesday: alphabetically by type, with the larger containers toward the back and the smaller toward the front. Brandon opened the cabinet Wednesday and said: oh no. I said: it is alphabetical. He said: that is what I meant by oh no. He uses the spice cabinet differently than I do, which is to say he opens it and takes the first thing he reaches, which is now allspice. He will learn to reach further.

Fall has arrived in the way that fall arrives in Utah: overnight, as if someone made a decision. Monday it was still summer and Thursday it was decidedly not. The mountains have the first faint color at the top, the aspens turning from the peak down, a slow pour of gold that takes six weeks to reach the valley. I made soup for the first time since April: a big pot of beef and vegetable, nothing from the freezer, just a Sunday afternoon with the radio on and the onions going in first the way my mother taught me and the smell filling the house until dinner.

Noah asked at preschool pickup what I did while he was at school. I told him I cleaned and cooked. He said: that sounds boring. I said: it was actually pretty good. He accepted this and then described his entire morning in chronological order with performance quality detail. He is four and a half and he has the narrative gifts of someone who has been practicing for an audience his whole life. He has been practicing for an audience his whole life.

That Sunday pot of soup — the one with the onions going in first and the radio filling the kitchen — is the recipe I’m sharing today. It’s nothing fancy, nothing from the freezer, just the kind of beef and vegetable soup you make when fall arrives overnight and the quiet house finally feels like the right place to be. This is the one I come back to every year when the aspens start turning and the season asks for something warm on the stove.

Classic Beef and Vegetable Soup

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds
• 3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 6 cups beef broth
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 cup frozen peas
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-high heat. Season the beef cubes with salt and pepper. Working in batches to avoid crowding, sear the beef on all sides until deeply browned, about 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. Start with the onions. Reduce heat to medium and add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more.
3. Build the base. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute until it darkens slightly. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices, beef broth, bay leaves, dried thyme, and smoked paprika. Return the browned beef and any accumulated juices to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover.
4. Simmer low and slow. Let the soup simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the beef begins to turn tender.
5. Add the vegetables. Add the carrots, celery, potatoes, and green beans to the pot. Continue simmering, partially covered, for 25 to 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the beef is very soft.
6. Finish the pot. Stir in the frozen corn and peas and cook for 5 minutes more until warmed through. Remove the bay leaves. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
7. Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh chopped parsley. Serve with crusty bread.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 24g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 5g | Sodium: 680mg