Italian Wedding Soup
Would you like to save this recipe?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
Send this recipe to my email.
Italian Wedding Soup. A hearty traditional Italian soup, that's a meal in itself, featuring our recipe for make ahead mini meatballs.
A few weeks ago we featured a recipe for Mini Italian Meatballs. This meatball idea was meant to be made in large batches then cooked and frozen in smaller portions for easy meals later on.
We suggested using them with spaghetti sauce, in a baked ziti recipe, in honey garlic sauce, or in Italian Wedding Soup.
Today we take that last suggestion and provide a very tasty recipe for that traditional hearty Italian soup.
From the name alone, you would assume that it is a soup traditionally served at an italian wedding. However, that is not so.
This peasant dish originates from Naples and the Campania region overall. In truth, the name in English is a bit of a mistranslation of the "minestra maritata", which means "married soup"!
The phrase is meant to mean the combining 'marriage" of the meats and hearty vegetables in the soup.
Traditional elements of Italian Wedding Soup.
Traditional ingredients in Italy, long ago included the tough scraps of meat, mostly pork, which would be simmered a long time to tenderize them and provide flavour to the broth.
The meatballs element is actually an Americanization of the protein component when fresh meat was more readily available and cheaper for immigrants from Italy.
Italians would originally have foraged for wild escarole or chicory as the leafy vegetable commonly found in the soup. Escarole is still used by many today, but the spinach that is now ever present in today's supermarkets has become increasingly more common too.
The pasta was traditionally the tiny shaped acini de pepe, which translates as "seeds of a pepper". It was known as a symbol of fertility, which no doubt contributed to the soups association to weddings in the minds of many.
Today's Italian Wedding Soup.
Today, Italian Wedding Soup can be much more versatile in the ingredients. I suggest you make whatever substitutions necessary, depending upon what you have on hand or is available locally.
No need to slow simmer pork stock, we used or homemade chicken stock which we always have on hand. Boxed stock can be used to make a quicker version if you so choose.
We were lucky enough to find the acini de pepe pasta, but it is not common in many stores. Orzo or other smaller shapes of pasta will work equally well.
Finally, we could not find escarole in any stores in St. John's, so we substituted kale instead. Since we like to freeze our soups in small individual portions for easy lunches, we figured the thicker kale leaves would stand up better to that treatment.
We simmered some saved parmesan rinds in the broth which gave it additional depth of flavour and some additional seasoning as well. All In all it turned out to be a beautiful deeply flavoured soup, topped with additional parmesan melting into it.
Some hearty crusty bread is the perfect accompaniment for dipping, making this, indeed, a hearty and satisfying meal in itself, any time.
Love great soup recipes?
Spouse is the Soup Queen as many of you already know. We have an entire Collection of our Best Soup Recipes, ready for you to explore, cook, and enjoy.
Like this Italian Wedding Soup recipe?
You'll find many more delicious soup ideas in our Soups Category and lots more leftover ideas in our Leftover Recipes Category.
It's easy to keep up with the latest home style cooking & baking ideas from Rock Recipes. Be sure to follow Rock Recipes Facebook Page and follow us on Instagram.
Plus you'll see daily recipe suggestions from decadent desserts to quick delicious weekday meals too.
You can also sign up for our FREE newsletter to know immediately when we add new recipes. You'll also get weekly suggestions for great family friendly meals and desserts too!
Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Italian Wedding Soup
Italian Wedding Soup. A hearty traditional Italian soup, that's a meal in itself, featuring our recipe for make ahead mini meatballs.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 yellow or red onion, diced
- 1 ¼ cups carrots, diced
- 2 celery ribs, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1 teaspoon chili flakes (optional or to taste)
- 8 cups chicken broth (Use low sodium when possible)
- ¾ cup acini de pepe pasta, uncooked (or other small pasta)
- 4-5 cups fresh spinach, escarole or kale, cut in ribbons
- salt/pepper, to taste
- Grated parmesan for garnish
- About 18 mini meatballs
Instructions
- Prepare the meatballs if you don't already have them in the freezer. (MINI MEATBALLS RECIPE HERE)
- Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or. Dutch oven.
- Add the onions, carrots and celery and sauté them in the oil for about 3-4 minutes.
- Season lightly with salt and pepper.
- Add the garlic and continue to saute for another minute or so.
- Add the Italian Seasoning, chili flakes, fennel seeds and rosemary.
- Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil..
- Slow simmer for 25-30 minutes.
- Add the cooked meatballs.
- Add the pasta and simmer for an additional 5 minutes. If using tougher greens like kale, you can add them now too.
- Finally add the escarole or other greens. (If using spinach, see NOTES.)
- Simmer just until the greens are tender and the pasta is fully cooked.
- Taste the broth for a final seasoning of salt and pepper.
- Serve with grated parmesan sprinkled on top.
Notes
If using spinach, I like to just add it to the serving bowls and ladle the soup over it, because it cooks and wilts quite quickly. This also preserves its colour when presenting the soup.
If you have saved leftover parmesan rinds, add them with the stock.
Nutrition Information
Yield
6Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 404Total Fat 28gSaturated Fat 8gUnsaturated Fat 20gCholesterol 66mgSodium 732mgCarbohydrates 19gFiber 2gSugar 3gProtein 23g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
