[This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a small commission when you click on and purchase something through my links. There is no extra cost to you and my opinions are 100% my own! Read more in my full disclosure for more information.]

  Easy hamburger soup is a delicious, quick, go-to recipe. It’s healthy and requires minimal ingredients and you don’t have to let it simmer all day. This soup will soon be a family favorite. On days when I’m in a rush or out of ideas for supper, my default is pulling out a pound of hamburger to thaw. Because I can always do something with burger, right?   Jump to Recipe Last week I had a pound of burger thawing in my sink but I was just staring at it. I was sick of spaghetti. Lasagne takes more cheese than I had on hand. It wouldn’t be thawed in time to shape it into meatballs. And I didn’t have buns for burgers. 

So I decided to make easy hamburger soup!

The only problem was, the soup recipes I was running across in my cookbooks called for stew meat. Reading through them they didn’t sound like they would go good with burger as a substitute.  Now beef soup recipes with stew meat are delicious! But because we get all our meat from the farm, I would have to plan farther ahead than just opening a can of stew meat.  I would have to thaw a roast a couple days ahead of time. Cook it all the next day in the Crock Pot (I have not jumped on the Instant Pot bandwagon yet but I hear they’re great. Old habits…). And then it would finally be ready for whatever soup I wanted to make.  Not happening two hours before supper.  So I ditched the cookbooks and hit the computer. Right away I found an easy hamburger soup recipe with potatoes and some veggies. Perfect!

Learn how to store your garden produce like potatoes and carrots: How to Store Vegetables for Winter

I made the soup.

I had a meeting that night and my husband didn’t get home until just before I had to leave. So there was no time to tinker and doctor the soup to make it just right. It just was what it was.  Rather it just wasn’t.  For a recipe that showed up on the first page of my Google search, it was awful! Bland as ever.  Seriously, the ticket to making simple food delicious is capitalizing on spices. I blindly followed this recipe without thinking about the lack of spices.  [I don’t remember where I got the recipe from now, but I’d be curious to read the reviews…] But my husband later said it was good, not great. So this was my cue to try easy hamburger soup again with my own twist.  Carrying over the ideas of burger, potatoes, veggies and broth from the previous recipe, I then concocted my own easy hamburger soup.  It was. Delicious. And it was a good thing I actually wrote down what I did so I can make it again. And get to share it with you!

Easy Hamburger Soup for the Picky Eater

My husband doesn’t like chunks in his food. Or crunchiness. So I don’t put fresh onions in this recipe, I just use onion powder for the flavor. And it is so much easier than peeling and chopping an onion.  But feel free to throw chopped onion in with the other vegetables! They will get soft and blend nicely if chopped fine enough. This is also why I blend this soup. When you blend something, you can hide a multitude of vegetables (which my husband happens to not like, also). So instead of just potatoes as the vegetable, I can add in any other veggies I want and he never knows. Just so long as I blend, blend, blend. 

Read more about blending to hide healthy foods: Homemade Baby Food

Blending also creates a wonderfully creamy base for this soup. It doesn’t require any flour or cornstarch to thicken it because the starchiness of the blended potatoes cream it beautifully. 

If you want to add a cream base to your soup, check out my recipe: How to Make Your Own Cream of Mushroom, Chicken or Vegetable Soup

If you don’t have broth on hand, just mix up boullion according to the label. 

Try this easy hamburger soup for yourself! 

Brown the burger in the kettle you want to use for the soup. After it is browned, drain it and let it sit on the side for now.  Throw the broth, potatoes and veggies into the kettle. Add the seasonings and put the lid on. Let the soup come to a boil and then turn it down to simmer for a while. Until the veggies and potatoes are soft.  If you want smooth soup (except for the burger) blend it. If it gets too thick while you are blending, add in the milk. [Get this stick blender here!] Once you have the soup blended, add the milk (or extra broth if you’d like to make it dairy free) until it reaches the consistency you like. Stir in the burger.   Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese and chives!