Italian Wedding Soup

    This is our take on Italian Wedding Soup – We had to try this one since it’s a soup with meatballs – tiny little meatballs – how could we pass this one up!?

    Italian Wedding Soup

    Prep Time: 45 minutes
    Cook Time: 18 minutes
    Servings: 64 Meatballs
    I’ve read that Italian Soup originated in Naples and that its original name is “minestra maritata” which means married soup, and that the name refers to the marriage of ingredients in the soup. Traditionally the soup has consisted of leafy greens like swiss chard or kale and a rich meat broth with beef or ham hock. I’ve taken the concept of marrying the ingredients and added the more Americanized version that includes meatballs.
    Of course, I had to try this one – I mean it’s a soup that’s associated with little meatballs. I will admit that making the little soup meatballs is more of an effort and takes a little longer than some of my other recipes where you’re only making 15-25 meatballs, but I think this soup is totally worth it. The best thing is that this soup is so comforting and serves a good amount of people, and once you have the meatballs rolled out the rest is pretty easy to throw together.
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    Ingredients

    Meatballs

    • 1/2 lb ground beef
    • 1/2 lb ground sausage
    • 1 cup plain breadcrumbs
    • 2 eggs
    • 1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped well
    • 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
    • salt & pepper to taste

    Wedding Soup

    • 1 cup onion diced
    • 3 carrots sliced
    • 2 cups chopped fresh spinach
    • 2 8 oz packages of mushrooms diced
    • 2 stalks of celery diced
    • 3 cloves of garlic minced
    • 3 tbs of butter
    • 8 cups of chicken broth
    • 1 cup acini de pepe pasta

    Serving Suggestion

    • Parmesan cheese

    Instructions

    • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
    • In a bowl combine ground meat, breadcrumbs, eggs, fresh parsley, parmesan cheese, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
    • Place your meatballs on a greased baking sheet and place in the oven. Bake for 18 mins.
    • In a pan you can toast the acini de pepe pasta – this is optional – you can put the pasta in a dry pan over medium heat and toast it until it’s brown. Depending on the heat this can take about 5-7 mins. Set aside once brown.
    • While the meatballs are cooking in a pot add the sliced carrots, diced celery, diced mushrooms, onion, garlic and butter and simmer for about 12 mins.
    • Once the meatballs are cooked, drain the excess grease on a plate lined with a paper towel. You can set these aside until the pasta is cooked
    • Add the chicken broth and the pasta to the pot with the vegetables and cook the pasta according to the package.
    • Once the pasta is done you can add the meatballs to the soup. Let the meatballs simmer to warm through and serve when convenient.

    Add all of your ingredients to your bowl and mix together until well combined. I do this by hand to make sure I have everything well incorporated and really it’s just a lot quicker and a lot more fun to get your hands dirty. I always use a larger bowl for this part – it seems to be easier than struggling with a smaller bowl and making a mess. I try to break up the eggs and mix the breadcrumbs over the meat before really digging and mixing the ingredients together. This way you don’t get clumps of breadcrumbs in the meat mixture. If that happens, keep working the breadcrumbs into the meat to evenly distribute the ingredients.

    I love this particular recipe for soups. The combination of the sausage and beef really holdup well to simmering in broth as your soup cooks. It also has the nice brightness that the fresh parsley brings to the meatballs and the color is beautiful as well. The parmesan cheese in the meatball itself gives these little balls a hint of nuttiness and some good salt.  

    The ingredients for this particular meatball is one that I use in a lot of soups since it goes with so many amazing recipes and it’s always fun to find little balls in your soup. It makes some classic soup recipes feel a little heartier and a little more fun.

    This recipe is really fun because it takes a pound of meat and makes it go a long way. Since the meatballs are little mini meatballs because they are so much easier to eat in a soup with a spoon it looks like you could feed a village with this simple recipe. It is a really nice meatball recipe for any Italian dish.

    Since these meatballs are smaller they are going to take a little longer to roll up and get in the oven – just something to keep in mind before starting this recipe. The good news is that since they are smaller they do cook quicker, which will save some time too.

    I’m really a fan of simple soups or sauces that you can throw together on a busy night with the things that you have in your pantry. A lot of times I have homemade chicken broth in the freezer – I really love making my own broths. There are many Sunday’s at my house that if you would stop by I would have a large pot of meat, bones, vegetables and aromatics simmering on the stove.

    The nice thing about this particular recipe is that if you don’t have time to make your own broth you can totally throw this soup together with the items you have in your pantry. Chicken bouillon or store bought chicken broth can be used and if all else fails and you don’t have fresh spinach you can always use frozen.

    The fresh veggies in this recipe are a great way to get some healthy ingredients into your friends and family when you make this dish. 

    This soup is a great addition to the weeknight meals that you can make for your loved ones. It does take a little bit of time to get it all pulled together but once you get everything done it makes an amazing meal that keeps well for leftovers.

    This is a soup that I just started making once I became a little obsessed with meatballs. I was researching and looking for different ideas for how to incorporate meatballs into different recipes. This is such a classic dish I had to try it and see what I could do to make it my own.

    One of my favorite ways to get more flavor into any pasta or soup is to toast the pasta. I can’t even remember where I first learned that toasting pasta either in a pan on the stove top or the oven was a thing. It really can add an additional dimension to any dish when you use that technique. 

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