Italian Wedding Soup With Mini Meatballs Recipe

Italian wedding soup may not be the kind of dish you're likely to be served at a wedding, Italian or otherwise, but this well-balanced soup complete with meat, vegetables, and pasta does make a hearty cold-weather meal. For lunch, serve it with rolls and butter, garlic bread, or breadsticks a la Olive Garden. (Olive Garden itself has been known to offer Italian wedding soup upon occasion, but it's not part of the regular soup lineup.) Italian wedding soup also makes an excellent starter course for an Italian-style entree such as aglio e olio, cacio e pepe, or chicken fettuccine alfredo.

Developer Katie Rosenhouse describes Italian wedding soup as a new favorite. What she likes best about this recipe is the baked meatballs. "Baking ensures juicy, consistent cooking," she tells us and notes that the meatballs can be prepared in advance of making the soup. They will last in the refrigerator for up to three days and can be frozen for longer storage. Whenever you're ready to prepare the soup, simply add the meatballs and heat them up in the broth. Ladle yourself a bowlful, sprinkle it with Parmesan, and enjoy!

The soup itself is made of carrots, onion, celery, spinach, garlic, chicken broth, ditalini, olive oil, salt, and pepper. For the meatballs, you'll also need ground beef, sweet Italian sausage, Parmesan cheese, parsley, panko breadcrumbs, and egg.

Prepare the vegetables: Peel and chop carrots, onion, and celery.

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat until shimmering.

Add carrots, onion, and celery and stir to coat. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until veggies are slightly softened.

Stir in garlic and cook for an additional minute.

Stir in chicken broth, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the veggies are softened, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 F.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Prepare the meatballs: In a bowl, mix to combine ground beef, sausage, Parmesan, parsley, breadcrumbs, egg, garlic, salt, and pepper using gloved hands.

Use a 1-inch scoop to portion meatballs onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing apart.

Roll each scoop into a smooth ball.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until meatballs are browned and cooked through.

When the soup is ready, add pasta and cook until just al dente, about 8 minutes.

Slowly stir in spinach and cook until wilted.

Stir in hot meatballs.

Serve the soup, garnished with shaved Parmesan if desired.

Italian wedding soup and minestrone are two of the best-known (and dare we say, best-loved) types of Italian soups, but they do have their differences. Italian wedding soup is usually broth-based and is typically made with chicken stock as is the case with this recipe. It generally also contains some type of greens such as escarole or kale — here we're going with spinach. In fact, its Italian name, "minestra maritata," translates to "married soup" and refers to the harmonious balance between meat and vegetables. (We're not sure where the pasta comes in, but maybe it represents the soup's offspring?)

Minestrone, on the other hand, typically has a tomato-based broth. While this soup may contain a number of different vegetables such as carrots, celery, aod onions, typically greens aren't included in the mix. It does, however, have beans providing the protein, since it's often vegetarian. It also usually contains some type of starch, but unlike in Italian wedding soup, it need not be pasta as some minestrones will use rice instead.

As mentioned above, Italian wedding soup can be made with different kinds of greens, so feel free to swap the spinach out for endives, escarole, kale, or even cabbage. You could also omit the other vegetables as these aren't always included in this type of soup. Conversely, you could feel free to sneak in some more veggies if you wish, since they certainly aren't going to do it any harm.  The pasta, too, is something you can change. Here we're going with the small, tubular-shaped noodles called ditalini, but Italian wedding soup often calls for acini de pepe, which is tiny and round and shaped like the peppercorns from which it takes its name. Orzo or couscous are other tiny pasta options that would also work in this soup.

You could change the meatballs by making a simpler version with either beef or sausage instead of both. Another option is to lighten things up with ground turkey or chicken. To save some time, you could even go with frozen meatballs or omit them altogether to make a vegetarian version of the soup.