Italian Wedding Soup
This cozy Italian Wedding Soup recipe features tender and flavorful meatballs, vegetables, and pasta in a delicious chicken broth.
Servings: 6 (1.5 cups each)
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1/4 cup plain breadcrumbs $0.08
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan $1.46
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning $0.05
- 1/8 tsp salt $0.02
- 1/8 tsp black pepper $0.01
- 1 lb. ground Italian sausage (hot, mild, or sweet)* $3.57
- 1 large egg $0.83
Soup
- 1 yellow onion $0.70
- 2 cloves garlic $0.08
- 3 carrots $0.24
- 3 stalks celery $0.47
- 2 Tbsp olive oil $0.44
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning $0.10
- 6 cups chicken broth** $0.78
- 1/2 cup small pasta*** $0.14
- 4 cups fresh spinach**** $1.30
Instructions
- Begin by making the meatballs. Combine the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper in a bowl.
- Add the Italian sausage, breadcrumb mixture, and egg to a large bowl and use your hands to mix them together until evenly combined. Divide and shape the mixture into 32 small meatballs, about 1 Tbsp each. Set the meatballs aside.
- Finely dice the onion, carrots, and celery, and mince the garlic. Add the olive oil to a large soup pot and heat over medium. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is soft. Add the carrot and celery and continue to sauté for a few minutes more, or until the celery begins to soften.
- Add the Italian seasoning and chicken broth to the soup, stir to combine, then place a lid on top and bring it up to a boil.
- Once the soup is boiling, add the meatballs to the soup and continue to boil until the meatballs are cooked through (about 10 minutes). Or, if you prefer browned meatballs, you can cook them in a skillet with butter first over medium heat until browned on the outside, then transfer to the boiling soup to finish cooking.
- Add the pasta to the soup and continue to boil until the pasta is tender (about 7 minutes).
- Finally, stir in the fresh spinach until wilted. Give the soup a taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Serve hot and enjoy!
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Notes
*I use Italian sausage as the base for my meatballs because it's already pre-seasoned and makes every meatball super flavorful.
**Chicken broth makes up the bulk of this soup, so make sure you're using a good quality broth or stock that has a lot of flavor. I like to use Better Than Bouillon to make broth because it's inexpensive and has tons of flavor.
***You can use any small-shaped pasta here. I had some leftover pearl couscous in the studio that I wanted to use up, so I used that, but you could also use acini de pepe (very similar to large pearl couscous), orzo, ditalini, pastina, or any other tiny-shaped pasta. If using a slightly larger pasta, you may want to increase the quantity to one cup.
****Traditional Italian wedding soup usually uses escarole as the green element, but I went for spinach because it's easily accessible and what I had to hand.
- A note on cooking the meatballs: You have a few options when it comes to cooking the meatballs for this soup. The easiest method, and the method that I think creates the juiciest meatballs, is to simply add the raw meatballs to the simmering soup and allow them to simmer in the liquid until cooked through (about 10-15 min.). The only drawback to boiling the meatballs in the soup is that this method does not create any pretty browned color on the surface of the meatballs. If the appearance of the meatballs is important to you, you can sauté the meatballs in a hot skillet with some butter until browned on the outside (as I do in the step by step photos below), then add them to the soup and simmer until cooked through.
Nutrition
Serving: 1.5cups | Calories: 448kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 31g | Sodium: 1646mg | Fiber: 3g