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
Found your amazing site via Pinterest. I can’t wait to try this recipe! My family will love it! (me too of course, lol)
I will be sharing a link to your recipe in my upcoming post, Easy Healthy Lunch Ideas (on a Budget). I am sure my readers will love your recipe too!
Thanks Tina! Let me know how you like it! I’ll be heading over to check out your site too…
I just so happened to come across this site posted in a mom’s group on Facebook…SCORE! I’m excited to try some of your recipes, especially this one!
Thanks Nicole! It’s definitely one of our favorites, i hope you like it!
Hi, Dan.
I look forward to trying your recipe out. However, we don’t have the particular pasta sauce your call for up in Canada. Is there a substitute you can suggest for it?
Thanks! :)
Kristine, you can use whatever jarred sauce you have on hand, any brand you like will work!
Really good freshly made, but noodles soaked up all the liquid.
Melanie, you can add the pasta (cooked) separately if you want to have this soup for leftovers!
Could I use canned tomato soup instead of pasta sauce? I have tons of campbell’s tomato soup!
Well, that’s a good question, I would say go ahead and give it a shot! are you talking about the Campbell’s condensed soup that you add water to? If so, I’d add the recommended amount of water plus the soup. I think to equal the amount of sauce in a jar you’d need to add 2 cans. I’d also cut back on the amount of salt used in this recipe as the condensed soup can be salty. Let me know how it works!
This is the best. I have been on the soup kick lately and this is very creamy and very good. I recommend this soup for you to try and make it’s easy to make. Will be making it again thank you so much for the recipe
Thank you Darlene, I’m glad you liked it!
the recipe does not specify…. do you put uncooked pasta in and let it boil until the noodles are soft, or do you use cooked pasta and just add it in at the end??? sometimes this makes a difference.
Hi Cathy, yes – when it says it step #8 to pour in the pasta that is uncooked pasta. Stir it and put the lid on so the pasta cooks for about 10 minutes.
I don’t have cream cheese on hand… will it be okay if I try it without?
It will be fine without it yes, it just won’t have a creamy consistency, but it will still be delicious! If you have any heavy cream you could add that too.
Made this for dinner, it was a hit and easy to make. :)
So glad to hear that Jenny – thanks!
This was a keeper! Absolutely delicious. I used the end of a box of mdium pasta shells and then decided to also use up the end of a box of no-boil lasagna noodles, breaking them up into large pieces (sort of like the lasagna soup recipes I’ve seen). Everyone loved it and I will definitely be making this again. I had been looking for something that wasn’t in my usual rotation of beef barley, chicken noodle, split pea, squash soups and this was not only different, but FABULOUS!
Carol, thank you so much for letting me know! It’s one of our favorite dinners too, our kids ask for it all the time!
I am so excited to try this. I think the addition of some diced zucchini would be really good in it too. Being only one person, I will probably freeze into individual servings. I always freeze before adding noodles.
Yes, that’s the great thing about this recipe is that you really can add whatever you like!
I made this soup after discovering the recipe on Pinterest. YUM! My husband and I really enjoyed it. Little prep time, easy to make, and delicious. I also liked that it was a creamy soup but without much guilt (I used low fat cream cheese). Thanks!
Thanks Madeline! I’m so glad to hear you liked it!
Can I use cream instead of cream cheese, as I do not like cheese?
You can Connie and it will be delicious. The cream cheese gives it a thicker consistency and a little tang but heavy cream will work fine.
Wow, thanks for all that feedback Ashley, and It sounds like you’re doing pretty well cooking if you ask me!
I must say i was a tad disappointed.
However i ended up doing exactly this and then upset over how bland it turned out to be. If u would like it more tasteful here is what i did and i will only be adding what i did extra.
I cooked fresh cilantro with hamburger meat.
Once finished i also added crushed tomatos and petite diced tomatos.
Followed by seasoning the whole thing with:
Grated Parmesan
Italian and herb seasoning
Italian seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Garlic salt
Oregano
And pulled out my shreadded cheese for everyone to get their desired amount of cheese.
5 stars because it was indeed DELICIOUS!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe
This is the second time I’ve made this dish. It is so easy and my family devours it. I’m not a great cook (my husband does most of the cooking because he likes to cook and he’s amazing at it.) I can usually at least follow the recipe yet with this I managed to not follow the recipe (on accident) both times and it turned out great both times. First I didn’t cook the noodles in the dish, I cooked them first then added them to the dish because of this I didn’t cook it the last 10 min. (it was thinner, more like a soup). Tonight I forgot to ask hubby to grab fresh basil so we went with just the oregano. Tonight I cooked the noodles in the dish and it was thicker and I preffered it. Both time I also used a regular (not salt free) pasta sauce but left out the salt and pepper. This is a winner with my family! Thank you for sharing!
The only thing I would say to a comment I saw was that this is supposed to feed 6 adults; I don’t agree. Granted my kids eat a lot when I serve this dish but we had 4 adults and 2 small kids eat this and there was not enough. Grandma and Grandpa came back for seconds and were bummed to find the pan empty. I will be doubling this next time and I won’t miss including fresh basil.
I’m excited to make this. I was searching the web for an easy, not too high brow soup to send on a church retreat for high schoolers. This nails it. Thanks for sharing. I know it will be a hit with this crowd.
Thank you Carol! We honestly just made it again yesterday, I hope you enjoy it!