Italian Wedding Soup Recipe

Italian wedding soup is an American creation — despite the name. It is very popular in the US and is basically a meatball soup with pasta and spinach. I love it.

This recipe will yield enough meatballs for two meals. You can either make half of the recipe or freeze have of the rendered meatballs for a future meal. These will freeze beautifully and can be used in spaghetti with meatballs or meatball subs. Or a second making to this wonderful Italian wedding soup!

Perhaps my only advice I can give you for this is to make sure you do not over cook the spinach. Simply add it to the hot soup and let it wilt. That is all.

Here is what you are going to need for this delicious and satisfying Italian wedding soup:

FOR THE MEATBALLS:
½ pound ground beef or ground chicken
½ pound Italian sausage or chicken sausage
1/3 cup bread crumbs
3 garlic cloves – minced
1 egg – lightly beaten
2 TBS heavy cream
3 TBS finely chopped parsley
½ cup shredded Parmesan cheese
2 TBS grated yellow onion
2 tsp. coarse salt
2 tsp. black pepper

Place all the ingredients in a bowl. Mix well and make meat balls – about 1 inch in size. Place meatballs on a lined baking sheet. You should get at least 48. Calculate 6 meatballs per person and bake them. Freeze the rest for future use.

Heat an oven at 350 degrees. Place the meatballs into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes – until meatballs are cooked through and browned.

FOR THE SOUP:
2 TBS olive oil
1 small yellow onion – finely chopped
2 celery stalks – chopped
1 large carrot – diced
6 cups chicken broth
½ cup dry white wine
¾ cups small pasta – any kind will do as long as it is tiny (orzo, pearls, shells, etc)
1 cup torn spinach leaves

Add the olive oil to a large pot. Heat. Add the onion, celery and carrots. Sauté for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened.

Add the chicken stock and white wine. If you do not like cooking with wine go ahead and skip it. Bring the soup to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the pasta and cook for about 6 to 7 minutes. You want the pasta to be al-dente. When the pasta is cooked, add about 24 of the cooked meatballs. Add black pepper and stir.

Add the spinach leaves. All you want is for them to wilt.

Enjoy this wonderful Italian wedding soup with some crusty bread.

Print the Italian Wedding Soup Recipe Here

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3 Comments

  • How much did this cost to make? It doesn’t look particularly frugal. If you’re going to have a frugal cooking website, shouldn’t there be some frugal tips or the cost per serving?

  • Hi Julie!
    Thank you for stopping by. This website has around 900 recipes for all pockets. The reason I do not post costs is because I have no way of knowing how much things cost in different countries. As you might expect, this site is visited by people from all over the world – I get an average if 2500 visits a day. I myself have lived in the East Coast, West Coast, South America and, now, Vanuatu since this site started. I can tell you that there is no universal price for anything.

    One of my focuses is to cook natural, unprocessed foods. This will lower people’s costs significantly, not to mention how much healthier it is. As for the tips, you will finds hundreds of frugal tips through out this website. Thank you again and have a great day!
    Mary Ann

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