ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP            back to home

6-8 servings

This is a good hearty cold weather soup. It’s a popular item on an traditional Italian wedding menu. Traditional ITWS calls for your basic meatballs- a combo of  ground beef, and pork. I took my inspiration for this version from Ina Garten’s “Back To Basics” cookbook where she uses ground chicken. I tweaked her recipe a bit and came up a spicy version of this Italian classic. Ina suggests sprinkling the soup bowls with parmesan cheese when serving. I’m leaving that up to you, personally, I think it messes with the texture- making it a little gritty.

for the meatballs*

1 # ground chicken

2 hot Italian sausages- casings removed

1 cup fresh white bread crumbs

4 cloves garlic- minced

1/4 cup fresh parsley- minced

1/2 cup parmesan cheese- finely grated

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs lightly beaten

1 t kosher salt

1/2 t fresh ground black pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper.

Mix all the ingredients very well in a large bowl- making sure the chicken and sausage are well combined.

I use an ice cream scoop (1  1/2 “) to drop golf ball size meatballs onto the sheet pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes until cooked through and lightly browned.

for the soup

2 T olive oil

1 cup minced yellow onion

1 cup small diced carrots

10 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 cup small pasta- like mini bow ties( farfalline) or stars

3 cups loose packed baby spinach

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy soup pot. Add the carrots and onion and sate until just softened about 6-7 minutes.

Add the stock and wine and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook in the simmering broth until the pasta is tender- following the guidelines on your pasta box. Adjust for seasoning. If the soup is too thick thin it out with a little more stock or water.

Stir in the fresh spinach and the meatballs and cook for another minute or 2 until the spinach starts to wilt.

Ladle the hot soup into bowls and serve hot!

* To make things easier I use a food processor fitted with the steel knife  to do the bread crumbs, parsley, cheese and garlic. With the machine running drop the garlic cloves down the feed tube, next the  cheese,then parsley and bread last- until everything is  a fine mixture.