Slow Cooker Italian Wedding Soup
Small turkey meatballs dropped raw into a clear broth with carrots and celery, finished with pasta and a lot of spinach.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
The name has nothing to do with weddings. It is a mistranslation of minestra maritata, married soup, and the marriage in question is between the meat and the greens. Once you know that, the whole thing makes more sense, because a bowl of this that is heavy on one and light on the other never tastes right. It is also why the meatballs are kept small, since a spoon should be able to carry meat and greens at the same time.
Almost every version I have read tells you to brown the meatballs first. In a slow cooker you do not need to, and I would rather you did not. Raw meatballs dropped straight into cold broth hold together better than browned ones, they stay far more tender over four hours, and the broth stays clear instead of turning cloudy with browned bits. This is one of the few times the lazier method is also the better one.
This is the lunch soup I make when I want something that feels light and still holds me until dinner. Eight cups of broth and ten ounces of spinach sounds like a lot of liquid and a lot of leaves, and then you eat a bowl and understand why both numbers are what they are. The spinach cooks down to a fraction of what goes in, which is the reason a bag that looks absurd on the counter is exactly right in the pot.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lb ground turkey
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan, plus more for serving
- 1/4 cup almond flour
- 1 large yellow onion, finely diced
- 3 medium carrots, diced small
- 4 celery stalks, diced small
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup dry small whole wheat pasta, such as ditalini or orzo
- 10 oz fresh spinach, roughly chopped
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, for serving
Instructions
- Mix the meatballs: Combine the ground turkey, egg, parmesan, almond flour, oregano, half the black pepper and a third of the minced garlic in a bowl. Mix with your hands until just combined and stop there, because overworking ground meat is what makes meatballs bouncy.
- Roll them small: Roll the mixture into small meatballs, about a rounded teaspoon each. You should get somewhere around forty. Small is the point in this soup, since they need to fit on a spoon alongside everything else.
- Build the pot: Put the onion, carrots, celery and remaining garlic in a 6-quart slow cooker, pour the broth over them and add the salt and remaining pepper.
- Add the meatballs raw: Lower the meatballs into the broth in a single layer, without stirring. They will look fragile. Leave them alone for the first hour and they will firm up on their own.
- Cook it low: Cover and cook on low for 4 hours. The meatballs are done when they are cooked through and the carrots are tender but not falling apart.
- Pasta, spinach, lemon: Stir in the dry pasta and cook 20 minutes more with the lid on, then stir in the spinach and the lemon juice and let the spinach wilt for 5 minutes. Serve with parsley and more parmesan.
Variations
- Instant Pot: Cook on high pressure for 8 minutes with a quick release, then add the pasta and spinach on saute for the last few minutes.
- With escarole: Swap the spinach for a head of chopped escarole added in the last 30 minutes. It is the traditional green and holds a pleasant bitterness that spinach does not.
- With acini di pepe: Use acini di pepe or pastina in place of the ditalini. The tiny beads suspend in the broth rather than sinking, which is how many people remember this soup.
- Grain free: Leave the pasta out entirely and add a second diced carrot and an extra cup of spinach. The soup stays brothy and the carbohydrate drops considerably.
- With a parmesan rind: Drop a parmesan rind into the broth at the start and fish it out at the end. It gives the broth a savory depth that grated cheese alone does not.
Storage & Leftovers
Cooled leftovers keep in the refrigerator for 4 days. The one thing to know is that the pasta keeps drinking broth overnight, so what was soup becomes noticeably thicker by the next day.
If you are making this specifically for the week, cook the pasta separately and add it to each bowl as you go. It is one extra pot and it keeps every serving tasting like the first one.
It freezes for up to 3 months, and freezes best without the pasta. Freeze the broth, meatballs and vegetables flat, then thaw overnight and add freshly cooked pasta and the spinach when you reheat.
Notes & Tips
- Do not stir for the first hour: This is the whole trick. Raw meatballs need an undisturbed hour to firm up, and every meatball that falls apart in this soup fell apart before hour one.
- Roll them small: A rounded teaspoon each. Large meatballs are fine in a pasta bowl but wrong in a soup, where you want meat and greens together on the same spoon.
- Dice the vegetables small: Carrot and celery cut small enough to ride on a spoon is what makes this feel like wedding soup rather than a vegetable soup with meatballs in it.
- Pasta goes in at the end: Twenty minutes is all it needs. Pasta added at the start turns to mush and cloudies the broth with released starch.
- Do not skip the lemon: One tablespoon at the end. It does not make the soup taste lemony, it makes a mild broth taste seasoned, and it is the difference between flat and finished.
- Mix the meat gently: Work the meatball mixture just until it comes together. Overmixed ground meat goes springy and tough no matter how gently you cook it.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- This is a high protein bowl that stays light, which is an unusual combination in a soup. The substance comes from the turkey and the volume comes from broth and vegetables, so it fills you up without the heaviness a creamy soup would bring.
- Ten ounces of spinach cooks down to what looks like very little, and that concentration is the point. Cooked spinach delivers far more folate, vitamin K and iron per spoonful than the same leaves would raw.
- Ground turkey gives you nearly all the protein of a richer meat with a mild, savory flavor that takes to garlic and parmesan, which is what lets this soup carry forty meatballs without tasting like one note.
- Whole wheat pasta keeps its bran, so the cup of pasta in this pot contributes fiber and slows how quickly the starch reaches your bloodstream compared with white pasta.
- The parmesan is doing more than flavor. It is a concentrated source of both sodium and umami, which is why this soup tastes fully seasoned on only half a teaspoon of added salt.
- As you eat, notice how the broth, the greens and the meatballs each arrive separately on the spoon, and slow down enough to taste all three.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to brown the meatballs first?
No, and I would skip it. Raw meatballs hold together better in a slow cooker, come out more tender, and leave you with a clear broth instead of a cloudy one.
Why almond flour instead of breadcrumbs?
It binds just as well, it keeps the meatballs tender, and it means the meatballs themselves are gluten free. Use a half cup of breadcrumbs instead if you would rather.
Can I use ground chicken or beef?
Both work. Ground chicken behaves almost identically to turkey. Ground beef makes a richer soup and a slightly cloudier broth, and I would drop the parmesan to a quarter cup with it.
My meatballs fell apart. What happened?
Almost always stirring too early. Let them sit undisturbed for the first hour so they can set, and resist the urge to check on them.