During the week, I like to stick with meals that I can make in under a half hour, if possible. That’s not always possible, but for sure, I try to keep it under an hour. The work days for me are usually pretty busy and then when the evenings come, the time goes fast, and even though I love to cook, I like to make sure we have time for our other evening routines…
This recipe is one of my favorites, not only because it tastes so wonderful, but because it is quick and it is easy. Perfect for a week night! I am always searching out and trying new soup recipes, especially those that are one pot type recipes (less dishes!). This one is one that I have made several times and although there are chopped tomatoes, I can get away with it with my picky eaters, as long as I keep the amount of tomatoes to a minimum. The best is when I have fresh garden tomatoes to chop up. Those just cook down so much, add great flavor and are almost unnoticed by the picky boys at the table.
I never intended for this one to be one of my “own” because the recipe I had I found and loved was perfect the way it was, no real tweaking necessary. I found it originally on a website called skinnypoints.com, but I recently found that the site is no longer functioning. This is one of the risks to keeping recipes solely linked to Pinterest without a printed or offline copy. Once the site it originated from is gone, so is the recipe. I had this happen with my scalloped potatoes as well, but as you may have seen in an earlier post, I recovered from that also and came up with my own! (Be sure to check that one out if you haven’t already). So using some memory and the list of ingredients that I had save in my MyFitnessPal app, with no directions, I needed to re-create the best I could (and saved a copy aside from my blog, just in case!).
The other thing I love about this recipe is the leftovers. It reheats well and can last a few days’ worth of lunches (depending on your preferred portion size).
If you try it, I hope you enjoy as much as we do. I usually serve it with my own cheese toast that I make in the oven and cut into strips to dip in the soup. It’s also good with some shredded cheddar cheese sprinkled on the top of the soup.
Beef& Tomato Macaroni Soup
1 pound lean ground beef (or ground turkey)
2 teaspoons onion powder
3 teaspoons garlic powder
Salt & Pepper to taste
½ cup Ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Chopped Tomatoes (canned or fresh chopped – amount varies on preference – see recipe notes)
8 cups beef broth
3 cups dry elbow macaroni
Directions:
In large sauce pan or stock pot, brown the ground beef (or turkey) with onion powder and garlic powder sprinkled on top until the meat is no longer pink. Drain any excess grease and season with salt and pepper.
Add ketchup, Worcestershire, brown sugar, Italian seasoning, chopped tomatoes and beef broth and bring to a boil on medium/high heat. Add the pasta and let cook, covered over medium/low heat for about 10 -12 minutes (or until the noodles are tender), stirring occasionally.
Let cool for 5-10 minutes and then serve in soup bowls.
Notes
The amount of chopped tomatoes you use really depends on your liking of tomatoes. The original recipe I had called for 56 ounces, but if I put that much in, my picky eaters would stick their noses up to it. So I usually use 14 ounces if I use canned or I chop up a fresh tomato or two from the garden if I have them.
If I use ground beef, I use as lean of hamburger I can (93% usually) or else I use ground turkey, just because it’s easier on my stomach. It also usually means I don’t need to drain grease because there is so little, you can cook it all off.
Shredded cheddar or the cheese of your choice is good sprinkled on the soup in the bowl when served.
For the cheese toast I make with it, I just take a slice of cottage white bread, toast it, butter it and sprinkle shredded parmesan cheese and cook under the broiler until golden brown. I cut the toast then in strips to dip in the soup (Yum!)
Although it seems like a lot of broth, the noodles will bring that down when you are ready to serve it and it will be even less “soupy” when you eat the leftovers so you definitely don’t want to cut that back too much if you do decide 8 cups is too much.
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