Busy Day Soup

It takes little creativity to discern why this soup bears its name. The most hands-on cooking you have to do is browning the meat, but the rest of the recipe is simply dumping in the remaining ingredients and letting it boil for a few minutes. The base of most soups is made from sautéed onions, celery, and carrots, but to speed up the process after a busy day, this recipe calls for a package of dry onion soup mix instead. The advantage to using this soup mix is that it lends a ton of mouthwatering savory flavor to the meat without the labor of endless chopping and cooking. By adding the packet to the browning meat, you ensure that all of the spices in the mix are able to permeate the soup by infusing the fat from the beef with rich flavor. After that, it's a matter of a simple addition of vegetable broth, water, canned fire-roasted tomatoes, and a bag of frozen veggies. Some pasta noodles are thrown in to bulk up the soup with some much needed starch, and after the pasta is done cooking in the flavorful broth, the soup is ready to serve. No chopping and no peeling—this soup brings a hearty and savory meal to your table with ease after a busy day.