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Betasuppe
Østlandet · Eastern Valleys

Betasuppe

A hearty barley soup thick with lamb, root vegetables and cabbage — a one-pot meal for cold days.

2 hrEasy
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Cultural Context & History

Betasuppe is winter fuel from the eastern farms — lamb and barley simmered with whatever roots the cellar holds until the whole pot turns thick and restorative.

Ingredients

  • 400 g salted smoked ham or mutton, diced
  • 4 potatoes, cubed352 kcal · 7.4 g protein · 1.9 g fat · 74.1 g carbs per 100 g
  • 2 carrots, cubed38 kcal · 1.3 g protein · 0 g fat · 9 g carbs per 100 g
  • 1/2 rutabaga, cubed40 kcal · 1 g protein · 0 g fat · 8 g carbs per 100 g
  • 1 leek, sliced
  • 1.2 litres ham broth or water3 kcal · 0.2 g protein · 0.1 g fat · 0.3 g carbs per 100 g
  • Salt and black pepper0 kcal · 0 g protein · 0 g fat · 0 g carbs per 100 g
  • Flatbread, to serve250 kcal · 12 g protein · 7 g fat · 33 g carbs per 100 g

Per-100 g values shown for ingredients verified against Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central (snapshot 2026-09-11). Ingredients not yet verified show no nutrition line.

Recommended Tools

  • Heavy stockpotHolds the broth at a steady, even simmer.
  • Sharp vegetable knifeCubes the roots to an even size so they cook at the same rate.
  • LadleServes the chunky soup without breaking up the vegetables.

Product suggestions are editorial references only; no purchase or affiliate links are currently configured.

Step-by-Step Instructions

  1. 1

    Bring the ham broth or water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. 2

    Add the cubed carrots, rutabaga and potatoes, and simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. 3

    Stir in the pre-cooked ham and sliced leek, and simmer for a further 15 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the soup has thickened slightly.

  4. 4

    Season with black pepper and salt, then serve with flatbread.

Chef's Tip

Taste before you salt — cured ham and mutton give up plenty of their own salt as they warm, and the broth often needs little more.

Chef's Tip

Like most farmhouse soups it deepens overnight; make it a day ahead and reheat gently so the potato cubes stay whole.

How this page was made

Written by
The Norcook editorial archive. No individual author is named yet — see the editorial and food-safety policy for what that means and what has to happen before a byline appears.
Content last checked
— “checked” records an editorial check, not a qualified review. Where one exists, the recipe-specific review record appears in the food-safety callout.
Regional context
Østlandet — the hub carries the wider background, the ingredient glossary and its own sources.
Sources
No page-level sources are recorded for this recipe yet. The cultural background above is written as general context, not as a sourced historical claim.

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