Easy German Green Bean Soup Recipe ~ Oma's Grüne Bohnensuppe

➤ by Gerhild Fulson

This easy Green Bean Soup, aka Grüne Bohnensuppe, is a something I'll make when I'm strapped for time and need something easy and quick, and so delicious. It's one that all the family members will love at any time of the year.

A traditional German soup that's a complete meal and the start of something amazing since you can make so many variations on this favorite soup.

This is a great recipe to learn how to cook a delicious soup in the way that Oma does. It's a "bit of this and a bit of that." If you've never cooked that way, try it.

First follow my recipe below the first time and then do some experimenting.

What ingredients to use for Oma's green bean soup?

This is the fun part of this recipe. It's where the experimenting happens!

Fresh ingredients are always best. That means fresh green beans in this case. However, fresh beans aren't the only option. I frequently use frozen green beans. In fact, I'll always have a couple of bags of frozen ones in the freezer, just for this soup. Even canned beans work.

For the meat, you can use raw lean ground beef. If you have some ham hocks, smoked sausage, or kielbasa (cut into chunks), that works great as well. Or perhaps you have some leftover roast, pork or beef, and maybe some gravy. If you are using cooked meat, omit the oil and add the cut-up meat to the frozen beans. You can also fry bacon and add that, using the grease from that to brown the ground beef.

For the liquid, the easiest is water. Especially if you're using raw beef, you'll end up creating a broth from this. However, using chicken broth, vegetable broth, or beef broth is great. If you don't have any, you can use a bouillon cube or two. If you have leftover gravy, add that as well.

For the potatoes, use raw ones, cut in chunks, or if there are leftover cooked potatoes, use them. Leftover mashed potatoes work great too. Or instant mashed potatoes, or canned potatoes - whatever you have! For quantities of these types of potatoes - it depends how thick you want the soup. Adding these cooked potatoes once the beans are cooked, will give you a German green bean soup in about 15 minutes.

For the onions, really any kind will do. I usually use just plain cooking onions for most of my cooking. Red will work. Green onions would be interesting at add towards the end.

For the seasonings, Bohnenkraut is essential!!!! It's that ingredient that MAKES this a German food! And what is Bohnenkraut? Summer Savory. I also use Vegeta in my soup. This is a seasoning mix. If you can't get that, just season with salt and pepper. Add Maggi if you like. 

Make this a colorful green bean soup by adding some sliced carrots or canned tomato chunks.

Here's how to make Oma's Grüne Bohnensuppe:

Get your ingredients ready, peeling those potatoes and dicing the peeled onion.

Brown the ground bee and add the onion. Saute until the onion is translucent. You don't need to get it golden brown, although if that happens, that's fine. It's more flavor.

Add the remaining ingredients. When you add the broth, use your wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits at the bottom of your pot. This is the flavor that will make your soup awesome!

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer until those veggies are tender. It will only take about 15 minutes.

Now you get to choose how you want to serve your soup. Either creamy or with a clear broth. If this is being served as a light lunch or an appetizer, then probably keeping it as a clear broth is best.

However, if this is going to be your main meal, then adding those instant mashed potato flakes to thicken the soup is idea.

Those potato flakes will increase the potato flavor of this soup. Delicious! Using Yukon gold potatoes brings a nice yellow color complement to the green beans. 

Enjoy!

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Hummus?

Yep. Hummus. Sylvie, my daughter-in-law, shares that hummus is delicious in this to add extra zing.  Her easy hummus recipe is so quick to make and it's becoming wildly popular in Germany. Try it. I think you'll like it too!

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Oma says,

All you really need for the green bean soup is a bag of frozen green beans, some type of potato, some kind of meat (raw or cooked), some kind of liquid, whether water, chicken stock or such, some seasonings, and about 20 minutes.

This soup is really among my favorite quick and easy soup recipes. It actually shows how to make soup in a really easy way.

Ready to make Green Bean Soup?

Here's Judy's Recipe for Pressure Canning this Green Bean Soup

It's been years since I've pressure canned, so I'm really glad Judy shared how to do it here. ~ Oma Gerhild 

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