Crock Pot Hamburger Soup-with Instant Pot Instructions

When it’s raining, cold and blowing, the crock pot is usually perking along on my counter. My oven is in high gear too baking various breads and goodies for Dave.  Some variation of  this Hamburger Soup recipe is often in the pot.

Taco Soup is a fun variation of Hamburger soup.

WATCH ME MAKE THIS SOUP WITH TIPS AND IDEAS:

I do a LOT of simple, nourishing cheap meals. We have always lived on a tight budget. Raising five kids on a single income with a large property and an old house…yeah. The dollars always went somewhere other than the food bill. So budget friendly meals are a way of life for me. Hamburger soup in all it variations is a hallmark healthy meal on a budget. And it’s SO good.

ONE large pot of hamburger soup will last several days. That stretches out the cost of your ingredients. And gives you soup for lunch and dinner for several days. I LOVE this soup leftover. It gets better and better flavor over time.

My family always looks forward to dinner.  It’s been a favorite for decades at our house. It’s easily made in the slow cooker, instant pot or stock pot.

Clean out your fridge produce bin to make Hamburger soup recipes:

I use whatever vegetables I have in my fridge that taste good together when I make this soup. I try to find seasonally available fresh, organic produce in Farmers Markets, stores, and our garden.  Fresh local produce offers the best nutrition.

USE YOUR LEFTOVERS and dig around in your pantry staples for this recipe! 

Did you know vegetables respire? And as they do they lose nutrients. Freshest is best with veggies! So don’t let your veggies waste away in your fridge. Use them up in this wonderful hamburger soup recipe. 

Your soup will taste fantastic and offer you the best the season has to offer if you follow my suggestions in the video for building a flavorful soup base. You can use whatever beans you have in the cupboard but we like kidney beans best.

You CAN add noodles to this recipe to make it heartier.

1. AFTER the soup is completely assembled Just add I cup of elbow, bowtie, rotini, spiral or other fairly thick noodle (stay away from thin or long noodles) to the pot.
2. Now add two cups of broth.
3. Stir and cook. 

FOR THE SLOW COOKING METHOD:

Add in noodles in the last 30 to 60 minutes

FOR THE SOUP FUNCTION METHOD:

Add the noodles before you lock the lid and press soup. Cook as directed

Ground beef soup recipes improve in both flavor and nutrition when you choose excellent ingredients like a grass fed low fat beef. A full fat beef will need to be cooked and drained. I don’t like to drain my beef once it’s cooked with all the seasonings in it because a good amount of flavor is also drained away.

I never drain grass fed organic hamburger  since it has almost no saturated fat. So ALL the flavor stays in the meat.

If you keep your eyes peeled you can often find lean grass fed hamburger in the discounted manager special bin at the grocery store. If I’m not at Costco I look for deals in the groceries and often find them.

A note on canned goods and sodium.

Most canned goods are loaded with extra salt we don’t need. So are the seasonings. My recommendation is to buy your canned goods low or no salt. That way you can season this soup and not worry you are overloading it with sodium.

Easy, flavorful and nourishing; it doesn’t get much better than that.

Dried beans work as well in this or many other recipes. It takes forethought to soak the beans and boil them. You can cook dried beans fast in your instant pot like I did in this recipe.

If you don’t want to use dried beans no worries. Organic, low salt, Canned beans are wonderfully healthy for you. Especially if you put in the bean juice too. Which I always do.

Crock Pot Hamburger Soup:

This soup can use any vegetables you enjoy that won’t break down into mush. That’s why I don’t regularly use potatoes in this recipe. The ingredients I ALWAYS use are hamburger, beans and tomatoes in some form. Carrots and parsnips…kohlrabi. Whatever your favorite hard veggies are will work in this soup.  I ALWAYS use the Worcestershire sauce and beef Bouillon to give it the characteristic flavor our family enjoys.

Hamburger Soup Instant Pot Method Choices:

Making soup in the modern electric pressure cooker is SO easy. Hamburger soup is one of our simplest recipes. 

• This recipe works great in the Instant Pot on slow cooker function with this nifty glass lid.
• If you want to speed the process up, Make Hamburger soup on the soup function (ready in under an hour).
• I have included the instant pot instructions for you in the recipe card.

I love slow cooking. Fortunately, The Instant pot and glass lid combo replaces my crock pot (One pot and SO many functions!). The instant pot has a stainless, unbreakable cooking pot and sautes right in the pot. The instant pot has the slow cooker function AND also pressure cooks to speed up the cook time if you get home early and don’t want to wait. 

For more delicious, easy Instant pot recipes on Homemade Food Junkie go here.

Suggestions To make this healthy hamburger vegetable soup recipe into a yummy pressure cooker beef stew:

We love this recipe as a soup. BUT to make it into a hearty beef stew here are a few ideas to get you started.

To make Hamburger soup into a hamburger stew I suggest you start by cooking your beans in DRIED form in the instant pot  on high pressure for 25 minutes. I use this method with my instant pot four bean stew. Go to that post for ideas and proportions of the liquids to beans if you go this route.

After your beans are cooked remove them to a bowl and saute the hamburger as directed in your recipe card.

To thicken your ground beef stew (IF you feel like it)

1. Start with 1 Tablespoon cornstarch(or your favorite thickening substitute) mixed with 2 Tablespoons water and mix it together to make a rue.
2. Add the mixture to the BUBBLING soup and let it cook on slow cook for 30 minutes OR set the instant pot to sautè function after the soup is finished.
3. When the finished soup is bubbling add the thickener and stir it as it bubbles along. The soup will turn thicker and the broth should stay clear once the cornstarch is thoroughly cooked.

The leftovers are delicious! After the flavors blend together this soup improves.

SERVING SUGGESTION:

Make bread bowls to serve this soup and have dinner and your bread in a cheap healthy meal.

Your Printable Recipe Card:

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