A hearty Dominican Style Sopa de Res Homemade Soup Made with Grass-fed Beef and Fideos
The fall and winter are hands down my favorite time of year to enjoy a hearty soup. This Dominican Style Sopa de Res is filled with hearty root vegetables and reminds me of Sancocho. It’s a soup so filling that you rub your tummy afterwards satiated and content!
Today’s soup is my mother’s favorite partly because it resembles Sancocho. Sopa de Res is Sancocho’s baby cousin. The flavors and ingredients are similar. In fact, it comes together quickly and is much easier to make.
Sopa de Res con Fideos is a Dominican style soup that I like to make with grass-fed beef and fideos. Fideos are thin noodles that you can enjoy either crushed up in small pieces or long. There’s little difference -if any at all – between fideos and angel hair pasta. This means that the pasta takes no time at all to cook. I always add the noodles at the very end to prevent them from over cooking and turning to mush.
Like many traditional Hispanic recipes, there’s a million ways of making this delicious beef soup. To start, you can use various cuts of meat such as short rib, brisket, chuck and more. I always look for a cut of grass-fed meat that’s decently priced with a good amount of marbling. You don’t want the meat to be too fatty otherwise the soup will end up as an oily mess. This is something that you want to avoid so that you don’t have to skim the fat from the soup later. My tips to avoiding an oily soup is:
Tip #1: Trim any excess fat from the meat
Tip #2: Choose cuts of meat with a good amount of marbling
Tip #3: Use a non-stick dutch oven pot so that you don’t have to add too much olive oil when sautéing the meat. Here’s my favorite: Green Pan Dutch Oven
The secret to making this soup taste like a mini-Dominican Sancocho is to use fresh ingredients. Additionally, you always want to layer the flavors and root veggies. I always like to start off by seasoning the meat with a simple sofrito made with onions, garlic, peppers, sour orange, Dominica orégano, salt, and a touch of olive oil. Your sofrito and sazón will vary in flavor depending on whether you’re using a white onion, red onion, red bell pepper, green pepper, and so forth. Traditionally, sofrito typically has some kind of cilantro in it. For this dish, I skip the cilantro in the meat marinade since I will add it to the soup later.
Once you’ve made your marinade for the meat, feel free to make sure that the meat is generously covered in this delicious homemade sofrito. I like to use kosher salt to season the meat. However, you can use your favorite seasoning salt whether that’s adobo or a chicken bouillon cube. Before making the soup, make sure to let the meat marinate for at least 20 minutes. You can even season the meat the day before and let it marinate overnight.
One of the biggest differences between Sopa de Res con Fideo and my Dominican Style Sancocho is that with this recipe, I’m only using one kind of meat. Sancocho is widely celebrated for the mix of meats, which adds flavor and dimension. Today’s Sopa de Res is just as tasty, but we’re only using beef. This means that we don’t have to stagger how we cook the different meats since the beef all cooks evenly at the same time.
More importantly, we’re not using as many root vegetables as Sancocho. However, you can definitely add as many as you like. This will add flavor and heartiness to the dish. My go to root vegetables for this dish are: Yuca, Carrots, Auyama (Kabocha Squash), Potatoes, and Celery. Together these veggies create a delicious medley. Lastly, you want to be mindful of the different veggies that you add and their different cook times. Yuca and carrots take longer to soften so I add them first. I then add the rest of the root veggies about 20 minutes later. You can also add corn on the cob to the dish!
If you’d like to follow along and make this recipe step-by-step feel free to visit my YouTube Channel: Chef Zee Cooks!
… and now for the recipe!
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Grass-fed Chuck Beef
- 1 White Onion
- 1 Cubanelle or Green Pepper
- 5-6 Garlic Cloves
- 1 tsp DR Orégano
- 1 ½ tbsp Kosher Salt
- ½ Sour Orange
- ½ tbsp Olive Oil
- 12 cups Water
- 2 Potatoes
- 2 Carrots
- 2 Celery Sticks
- 1 ½ cups Diced Auyama
- 1 Large Yuca
- 1 cup Fresh Cilantro
- ½ cup Fideos
- Extra Kosher Salt if needed (or Seasoning Salt of Choice)
Instructions
- Combine white onions, green peppers, fresh garlic, salt, and olive oil in a food processor. Mix until smooth.
- In a large mixing bowl, add grass-fed chuck beef, sofrito, Dominican orégano, kosher salt, and ½ sour orange. Mix until well combined. Marinate for at least 20 minutes or overnight
- In a large non-stick dutch oven, add 1 tsp of olive oil and brown meat on all sides for about 10 minutes. Make sure that all of the marinade is added to the pot as well. After 10 minutes, add 12 cups of water. Let boil for 1 hour or until the meat has become tender
- Next, add diced yuca, carrots, and celery. Optional: feel free to add corn on the cob that has been sliced into thin pieces. Let boil for 20 mins. Feel free to add extra water if needed
- Afterwards, add diced potatoes, auyama (kabocha squash), and fresh cilantro. Boil for an additional 10 minutes. You’ll start to notice that the color of the soup will begin to change. Feel free to add water as soup will thicken. Taste soup and adjust for seasoning.
- At the very end, remove any large pieces of cilantro and add ½ cup of crushed fideos. Cook for another 2-3 minutes. Then let stand for 10 minutes. Soup will thicken as it sits and flavors will deepen. Enjoy with rice, tostones, and avocados!