Slow Cooker Ginger Beef Noodle Soup

I made lots of new soups this winter. Michigan winters make me want to eat soup for every single meal! I didn't think I would feel like blogging about soup once spring rolled around, but here we are, two days into spring, with a winter storm watch. Ugh! I guess it's the perfect opportunity to share some of my soup recipes.

This one's really good. It's adapted from this one on food.com.

Slow Cooker Ginger Beef Noodle Soup

Ingredients

1½ lbs. beef chuck

8 cups beef broth

4 cups water

½ cup soy sauce

½ cup ginger, very thinly sliced

1 onion, coarsely chopped

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

½ tsp five spice powder

½ lb. shiitake mushrooms, caps only, thickly sliced

3 large scallions, thinly sliced

½ lb. fresh Chinese egg noodles or 1 lb. thick japanese udon noodles

Directions:

Place the meat in a slow cooker. Add the broth, water, soy sauce, ginger, onion, garlic, and five spice powder. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or until the meat is tender. Transfer the meat to a plate and let cool slightly. Using two forks, pull the meat into thick shreds.

Strain the broth, discarding the solids. Return the broth to the cooker. Add the mushrooms, scallions, and shredded meat. Cook on high for 15 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender.

Meanwhile, bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until al dente. Drain well. Add the noodles to the soup.

Makes 6 servings.

I really didn't change very much. It called for half of a star anise pod, but I didn't have that so I used Chinese five spice powder. Star anise is one of the five ingredients. Also, I couldn't find the noodles called for in the recipe so I used a regular noodle (like you would find in chicken noodle soup). I tried cooking the noodles right in the soup (I thought it would be hot enough since it was cooking on high), but I don't recommend this because they got kind of gummy.

Also, I used cremini (or baby portobella) mushrooms instead of the shiitakes. They were a lot cheaper than the shiitakes at my store and they worked just fine. White button mushrooms would be fine too.

This is a tasty soup that is wonderful on a cold winter (or spring!) evening.