Easy Chicken Meatball Minestrone – chicken meatballs are a low fat alternative that are still incredibly delicious in this healthy, colourful and very flavourful soup.
Easy Chicken Meatball Minestrone
I’ve been concentrating on a bit more healthy eating these days and this easy, tasty soup is a pain free way to help. Beans for fiber, spinach and other veggies for the old vitamins and low fat chicken meatballs for protein; hey you can’t call that unhealthy!! We’ll not discuss what I had for dessert afterward though. I’ll leave the other side of the coin for another day. ;
Easy Chicken Meatball Minestrone
Prep Time
20 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
50 mins
Easy Chicken Meatball Minestrone - chicken meatballs are a low fat alternative that are still incredibly delicious in this healthy, colourful and very flavourful soup.
Course:
Soup
Cuisine:
Italian Inspired
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
For the Meatballs
- 1 ½ pound lean ground chicken
- ½ pound lean chicken sausage or you could just use 2 lbs of ground chicken and omit the sausage
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp ground sage
- 1 tbsp dried summer savoury
- 1 tsp crushed fennel seed
- 1 beaten egg
For the soup you will also need:
- 2 litres chicken stock
- 1 diced onion
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- 3 large carrots cut in sticks or coins
- 1 cup frozen sweet corn
- 1 can kidney beans rinsed
- 2 tbsp summer savoury
- 2 cups baby spinach leaves
- 4 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
To prepare the Meatballs
-
Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk for 5 minutes before adding to all the remaining ingredients and mix well. This will be a loose mixture but as long as you can form it into balls, it will be okay. Add more breadcrumbs if the mixture is too soft.
-
Form into small balls and fry in a large heated skillet with 2 tbsp oil added. Fry all the meatballs until completely cooked and nicely browned.
To prepare the soup
-
Deglaze the pan that the meatballs were fried in with a little chicken stock and add to a large pot along with all of the remaining ingredients, except the spinach and cilantro.
-
Simmer together for 20 minutes before adding the spinach and cilantro.
-
Simmer only for a minute or two more before serving.