Beefy Tomato Soup is one of our most popular soup recipes! Ground beef and pasta in an addicting tomato cream sauce, and it’s ready in 30 minutes!
We love making this easy, cozy soup on busy nights or for a comforting weekend meal. All you need is crackers or buttered bread for dipping, and a crisp salad on the side if you get the urge.
An Easy Soup Recipe That’s Done In 30 Minutes!
Because I like to try and use what we have in the house, I opened the freezer, the fridge and all the cabinets to take stock of what we had on hand. Sometimes going back out to the grocery store is just not something I want to do.
I grabbed some ground beef from the freezer, cream cheese from the fridge, onions, basil and garlic from the cabinets and got to work.
Beefy Tomato Soup has become one of our most popular recipe on our site and for good reason. It’s really easy to make, it’s done in less than 30 minutes and it’s so creamy and comforting, everyone gobbles it up.
This soup recipe is another way I like to use spaghetti sauce in recipes as a short cut and a boost of flavor. And probably one of my favorite ways, too. Also a jar of spaghetti sauce is usually something we have in the pantry so it’s an easy ingredient to use in recipes like this.
This beef and macaroni soup gets so thick it’s almost like a beef goulash. Some people have said that it’s similar to a homemade hamburger helper once the noodles soak up all the broth.
How Do You Make Beefy Tomato Soup?
Gather your ingredients together and start by cooking the onion and garlic in olive oil. Next brown the beef, add a few seasonings then pour in chicken broth and your jar of marinara sauce.
You can still make this soup if you don’t have a jar of spaghetti sauce, just substitute a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce if that’s what you have instead.
Give it a stir and let it simmer for 10 minutes, not a full boil, just a simmer. Stir in cream cheese to make it nice and thick, add some fresh basil and finally add in the pasta.
Can You Cook the Pasta Separately For This Soup?
You sure can. If you like your soup to have more broth, cook the noodles separately and add it in the each bowl as you serve the soup.
A lot of our readers love the way that the pasta soaks up the broth the next day (and so do we). You can always add a splash more broth upon reheating if you like. But if you really want to hang on to all that addicting, creamy tomato broth then just add cooked pasta to your bowl before serving.
Variations
We get a lot of comments about the pipette that we use in this soup. We love this pasta shape because all the creamy broth gets all up inside the pasta, so you get all of that flavor in every bite. If you can’t find that pasta shape, use elbow macaroni, shells or any other short tube pasta shape.
Many of our readers say that they add fresh spinach to this soup, or other vegetables like peas and carrots. You can also swap out the ground beef for ground turkey or pork, even some Italian sausage would be great.
Looking For More Soup Recipes?
- Creamy Potato Soup with Italian Sausage
- Split Pea and Ham Soup
- Grandma’s Pasta Fazool
- Homemade Turkey Soup
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Beefy Tomato Soup
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeBeefy Tomato Soup is an easy beef and macaroni soup that your whole family will love! This soup is done and on the table in less than 30!
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 (24 ounce) jar of spaghetti sauce
- 4 cups of chicken stock
- 1/2 cup of cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni, shells or other short-tubed pasta
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil, divided
Instructions
- In a large pot heat the olive oil over medium heat.
- Add the onion and garlic to the pot and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring, until the onion softens.
- Add the ground beef to the onions, breaking up with a spoon and cook until no longer pink. Drain any drippings if necessary. Season with the salt, pepper and oregano and stir to combine.
- Pour in the chicken stock and the pasta sauce, stir and bring to a simmer. Simmer the soup for 10-15 minutes, uncovered.
- Whisk in the cream cheese until combined, then add 2 tablespoons of the fresh basil.
- Pour in the pasta, stir and let cook for 10 minutes, covered, stirring halfway through cooking.
- Spoon into bowls and garnish with the leftover basil.
Recipe Notes
Your favorite spaghetti sauce can be used, or even a can of crushed tomatoes with a little more seasoning works!
NOTE: A few of our readers have commented that the noodles soak up all the broth when you reheat the next day. If you want the soup for leftovers with more broth, cook the pasta separately and then add it to each bowl as you heat it up! Alternately you can add another cup of broth to the soup when making.
- Category: Dinner
- Method: stove top
- Cuisine: American
This soup was fantastic! My almost 2 year old daughter loved it! She kept saying… ‘soup, soup, soup…..mmmmmm’. I used a pasta sauce with basil in it, but still added fresh basil. I was also a bit short on cream cheese because I doubled the recipe so I added a little bit of heavy cream. Can’t wait for leftovers!
Awesome! We love hearing those stories, especially about kids loving their dinner – thanks Theresa!
This soup was so so good my friend Lori makes that soup without the hamburger her husband and her love it and we’re having it tonight and I tasted it it’s so good
So happy to hear that Kathy- enjoy!
How many does this serve?
Serves 6, I think that was getting cut off in the ingredient card. Enjoy!
My grandmother handed a recipe like this down to me. We do it More like a goulash. Bell pepper, hamburger, onion , garlic, bay leaf, basil and top with Parmesan cheese! (Dairy free) It was one of my favorites growing up! I can’t wait to try with cream cheese! Unfortunately I have a dairy allergy in the house so grandmas way for him and I’ll mix a little cream cheese into some for me!! Thx
Thanks Jennifer, great to hear! Yes, that sounds like a perfect solution!
Do you cook the pasta before you add to chicken stock?
Nope! Just throw the pasta right in, it’ll cook in the soup!
My family loved this, it was delicious. My boys called it “Lasagna Soup”. (It really did taste like lasagna! So good)
I’m so glad to hear that – and they’re right, it does taste like lasagna!
Made it
Great Erin – did you like it?
Just made this and I love it!! Very yummy :) Thanks for the recipe!
We just made it last night too! Thanks Natalie!
Jenn
I just made this soup and me and my husband LOVED it!! It was hearty and filling and had tons of flavor. I fixed sour dough grilled cheese sandwiches with it. It was perfect!! Thanks for the yummy recipe!
Kim
Sour dough grilled cheese sandwiches sound amazing, perfect dippers! Your very welcome, glad you (and your husband) enjoyed it!
Would it work if I used both sausage and beef and make a double batch? We are moving and trying to use what he have.
Absolutely Michelle – we always use up what we have, I think both beef and sausage together would be great! Good luck with your move!
This looks delish! How many servings does it make?
Thanks Jen! I updated the recipe to say it serves 6. I’d day that it serves even 8, if you’re serving a small bowl and a salad or something on the side – but 6 for sure! I hope you try it, it’s one of our favorites!
I made this over the weekend and it was a hit. I’m actually very anti-jar-sauce because I always make my own and was hesitant to grab something off the shelf. But I did and it was great in this recipe. I did have crushed tomatoes, so maybe I’ll try that next time. Any suggestions for a brand of crushed?
Thanks for posting this. I will be making it again soon.
Thanks Kim! We make our own sauce all the time too, but after making this recipe I’ve found it is nice to have on hand. We have made this with crushed tomatoes also and it turns out great. I like to buy Redpack or Muir Glen because they have BPA free packaging but I think as long as you season it up the way you like any brand will do! Thanks for checking in!
Wow, what a great recipe! A tomato soup lover since my childhood, I abandoned canned tomato soups years ago, and have several “go-to” scratch recipes now that I use. Tried this one for the first time today, it came out just perfect. I really like the simplicity of this recipe, (simple, clear instructions, when to put the lid on, etc.) plus it has three of my favorite ingredients…(1) onions; (2) garlic; and (3) ground beef. Several of my beloved recipes use heavy cream as an ingredient, but I loved the way the cream cheese brought such a smooth, velvety creaminess to this soup. Next time, I’ll substitute Gourmet Seasoning Salt instead of regular salt, and Chive & Onion cream cheese instead of plain. But also, thank you for introducing me to Rinaldi’s Pasta Sauce…a hidden gem in my local Wal-mart that I never knew about. How many times have I thrown together whatever I had on hand to make a meal, but it was always a one-time never-to-be-duplicated-again recipe. Profuse thanks for writing this one down….it is definitely a keeper!
Thank you so much Wil! I love all the feedback. We do actually keep jarred sauce on hand, especially when it;s a good one! Great for lots of different quick ideas. And chive and onion cream cheese – awesome idea!
This was really good, and really simple. I threw in some chopped baby spinach at the end for color because I didn’t have basil. What a great idea to use pasta sauce….it really separates it from typical tomato-based soups.
Thank you Allison! This soup was a sponsored post for Francesco Rinaldi – we were trying to think of creative ways to use their sauce, now we buy it all the time for this soup! Glad you liked it!
Will using a different brand of sauce affect it much? I don’t have that brand on hand, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen it. I do have a few jars of assorted flavors of Prego. Spaghetti with ground venison was on the menu tonight, but I think dressing it up with the cream cheese will be an amazing way to change up an easy week night meal. Thanks!
You can use whatever sauce you have on hand…we;ve even used plain crushed tomatoes and it still came out great!
Saw your recipe on Pinterest. We tried it tonight and it was delicious! Definitely a family favourite and will be added to the meal roster. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Karen, it’s one of our favorites too! Glad you liked it.
can u freeze this soup
Debbie, you can freeze it for sure but the pasta might get a little soft when you reheat it. But we’ve done it and it’s still great. If you’re making it planning to freeze it then I’d freeze it without the pasta and just add it in when you reheat.