Stuffed Pepper Soup

I know the weather is warming up (some days) but I still wanted to share this soup recipe with you all. It is my new favorite comfort food soup. I stumbled across it somewhere online this winter and have made it several times. I’ve even made it for folks as dinner when they’ve had illnesses or surgeries – and everyone just raves about it.

The great thing about this soup (other than the taste) is that it is very easy to make, requires ingredients you most likely already have in your pantry, and can be easily scaled up or down to make more or less as you need.  I’ve made it with one pound of ground beef for a small batch that lasted me a week’s worth of lunches and I’ve made it with three pounds to feed two families.  All you do is add or subtract ingredients as you need to size up or down.

The recipe below is the “base” recipe which uses one pound of ground beef.  If you go up from there, you might play with the proportions of bell peppers and tomatoes to get the ratio you prefer.

This truly tastes like stuffed peppers in soup form. Except, to me, it’s even better.

One other thing to note. I keep my rice separate until I serve it so that it doesn’t soak up all of the broth.  I also usually use leftover rice.

Stuffed Pepper Soup

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1-2 bell peppers, roughly chopped (1 if they’re large, 2 if they’re small)
1 can of petite diced tomatoes
1 large beef bullion cube (or 1 box/can of beef broth)
1 can tomato soup (I have also used a small can of tomato sauce when I was out of the soup)
Houston House Seasoning
1 tsp sugar (to taste – takes out the bitterness from the tomato)
1 tsp minced garlic
1-2 cups COOKED rice

1. Brown ground beef in a large stockpot. Season with House seasoning while cooking.
2. Add minced garlic, onion and peppers and sauté until the vegetables are slightly tender.
3. Add broth (or bullion and water), tomatoes, tomato soup, and House seasoning.
4. Bring to a boil and add sugar as needed for bitterness from tomatoes.
5. Simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes on low.
6. To serve, spoon some rice in the bottom of a bowl and ladle soup on top.

It tastes even better the next day.