Vegetable Beef Soup with Orzo

This hearty vegetable beef soup is comfort food for any time of year. Tender chunks of beef join with a medley of vegetables (including leafy greens) and orzo pasta for a satisfying and flavorful homemade soup.

Orzo in soup is one of my very favorite ingredients to add (see also Italian sausage soup or this healthy potato leek soup). More subtle on the front end in just-made soup, it expands in leftover portions to be even heartier the next day. To be honest I'm not really sure which way I like better.

Good thing there's no choosing with this vegetable beef soup recipe as you can enjoy it both ways. Tender stew beef is not chewy at ALL, and along with a variety of vegetables, Italian seasonings, and a tomato/beef broth, really makes this simple soup taste special.

I cook this soup about once a month, year-round. It's that good!

What Makes This Recipe Work

• Searing the stew beef enhances both the flavor of the meat itself from its browned crust and also the soup's liquid, which benefits by scraping up the resulting heavily browned bits (called fond) from the bottom of the pan in the deglazing step and working it into the broth. Fond provides a lot of flavor!
• Choosing the right ingredients, from tender cuts of beef to fire-roasted tomatoes to plenty of freshly-minced garlic elevate a simple dish into special comfort food.
• Adding just enough orzo is key in having it be present in each bowl of freshly-made soup, but not overwhelming leftover portions and absorbing all of the liquid.

Recipe Ingredients

• Stew beef: For convenience I just about always use packaged stew beef here. Having the meat pre-sliced is a big time-saver, and this kind of beef works wonderfully in soups and stews (like Guinness beef stew) to produce tender, not-too-chewy-at-all pieces of meat. If you're unable to find packaged stew beef, look for a boneless chuck roast with a fat marbling and cut it into pieces.

• Tomatoes: Crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes are added to this vegetable beef soup to flavor both the broth and allow tomato chunks to be present in the end result. While any canned diced tomatoes will work (though some have chiles or other ingredients that might not mesh well), the fire-roasted variety is my favorite as it brings an extra burst of flavor.

• Vegetables: This vegetable beef soup includes the ubiquitous onion/carrot/celery trifecta, the aforementioned tomatoes, and fresh spinach. You can mix-and-match other vegetables as you see fit (peas, corn, potato cubes, Lacinato kale that I use in minestrone soup, etc.) but this is my preferred line-up.

• Orzo: One-half cup of dry orzo pasta is added to cook in the soup near the end of the recipe time. While it might not look like a lot of pasta in a soup to start, the orzo enlarge and soak up some of the liquid in leftover portions and makes this soup feel even heartier. I would not add more than one-half cup.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Season the stew beef with kosher salt and pepper. Heat canola oil (or other neutrally-flavored, high-heat cooking oil) in a large pot over medium-high heat until the oil is shimmery. Add the stew beef and sear until all sides have a deep brown surface, about three minutes per side. Remove seared beef to a plate for now.
2. Add the olive oil to the now-empty pan and reduce the heat to medium. Once heated, add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook for 6 minutes.

3. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for one minute more.
4. Now it's time to deglaze. Pour a little bit of the beef broth into the pan and scrape up all of the burnt bits up off of the bottom of the pan so they're a part of the soup's liquid.

5. Pour in the rest of the broth, then the crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme leaves, and the two bay leaves. Stir in the seared beef.
6. Bring the soup to a simmer for 45 minutes to one hour. Remove the bay leaves after the simmer time -- something I always forget!

7. After it simmers, raise the heat to bring the soup to a boil. Add the dry orzo and cook until tender according to the package instructions. This will take about 10 minutes or so.
8. Add the spinach leaves and stir in until just wilted, then serve.

Expert Tips

• Ideally for this soup use a stainless steel pot, as it will develop more fond (thus, flavor) than a non-stick pot. Plus you don't have to worry about scratching the bottom when you scrape and deglaze. If all you have is non-stick, don't scrape hard on the bottom of the pan, and use utensils that will be gentler on the surface, such as silicone and wood. Metal utensils will leave scratches.

• Salting the stew beef before searing it is very important in providing the right level of saltiness for this soup. As the only other salt-added ingredient is the beef broth, don't skimp on salting the meat. For 1 ½ pounds of stew beef, aim to use around 1 ½ teaspoons of coarse kosher salt (I use Morton's), or until the meat is well coated.

• Stir the dry orzo when adding it to the soup, and stir frequently throughout its cook time, making big sweeps along the bottom of the pot. This will prevent it from clumping and sticking together as it cooks, as well as from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

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