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Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale

Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale

A truly soul-satisfying soup: Meatballs, noodles, a bit of green, & Parmesan cheese broth. Better than any can.~ 

Easy way to cook protein rich meatballs in the slow cooker for Parmesan cheese rind soup />> Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale | @TspCurry For more soup recipes: TeaspoonOfSpice.com

If it would have been a normal dinnertime – and my kids had asked these question, I would have beamed and answered, “Yes!”

“Mom, did you put these yummy carrots in this soup?”

“These are great meatballs, did you make them?”

“Did you add these green leaves? I can’t really taste them, so that’s good.”

“I love these noodles, can we put them in soup again?”

But those kid-approving accolades were not for me. They were for this can instead:

Kale soup

We’ve eaten several cans of soup lately as we’ve all had some sort of flu. When the kids are sick, I don’t focus my energy on homemade soup, because they only eat a few spoonfuls. I’m just happy when they are sipping ANY sodium or fluids.

So the other day as I was coming off of my short stay on the sick couch, I was relieved to solve dinner with that can of Italian Wedding Soup from the back of the pantry. However, I was NOT prepared for my kids to like it so much. I felt my homemade-soup-making abilities had been called into question.

But, I was not to be outdone by a can. And I’m proud to report, I bested that can!

Easy way to cook protein rich meatballs in the slow cooker for Parmesan cheese rind soup />> Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale | @TspCurry For more soup recipes: TeaspoonOfSpice.comp

I used this awesome Italian Wedding Soup recipe from TheKitchn with the following adaptations (plus a few more in the recipe below)…because one kid was still sick so I couldn’t run to the store for the recipe’s called-for ingredients:

  • Kale instead of escarole. From the garden.
  • Feta and Cheddar in the meatballs instead of Romano and Parmesan. Totally sacrilegious for an “Italian” soup. But the meatballs were still the BEST part of the soup.
  • For a rich, flavorful broth, small cheese nubbins and Parmesan rinds (from the bottom of the cheese drawer) were tossed in.  Here’s more info on this cheese-rinds-in-soup trick.
  • Added carrots. I was not to be outdone by canned soup.
  • Added macaroni pasta. Again, not to be outdone. (Plus 3 more cups of broth since the pasta absorbs some.)

Easy way to cook protein rich meatballs in the slow cooker for Parmesan cheese rind soup />> Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale | @TspCurry For more soup recipes: TeaspoonOfSpice.com
The result? More questions from the kids:

“When will you make this again?”

“I like this soup better than the can, except these green leaves are bigger. Can you make them smaller next time.” Sigh.

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meatball soup

Homemade Italian Wedding Soup with Kale


  • Yield: 8-10 servings 1x

Description

A truly soul-satisfying soup: Meatballs, noodles, a bit of green, and Parmesan cheese broth.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1112 cups chicken stock
  • Parmesan rinds and/or leftover hard cheese pieces
  • 1 pound ground meat (chicken, turkey, pork, beef, veal, or a combination)
  • 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs or panko
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (or Romano), divided
  • 1/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese (or Parmesan)
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 bunch kale trimmed and torn into bite-sized pieces (about 6 lightly packed cups)
  • 1 cup dry macaroni pasta

Instructions

  1. In a large pot, combine stock and cheese rinds and aged cheese pieces (not feta or Cheddar)
  2. Combine the ground meat, bread crumbs, 1 egg, 1/4 cup of each cheese, oregano, salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix thoroughly, then form the mixture into 3/4-inch balls. You should have 30 to 40 meatballs, depending on how large you form them.
  3. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium high heat. Add the meatballs in batches and cook, turning, until browned all over, 3 to 5 minutes. (If they are still a bit pink in the middle, don’t worry; they will continue to cook in the broth.) Set them aside on paper towels to absorb excess oil.
  4. In a 4- to 6-quart soup pot, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium high heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onions are tender and the garlic is soft, but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add the warm cheese stock and bring to a boil. Add the greens and macaroni, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the meatballs and cook another 5 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, combine the remaining egg and remaining feta cheese in small bowl and stir with a fork to blend. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the hot soup, stirring constantly. Cover and simmer just until egg bits are set, about 30 seconds.

Have you ever recreated a packaged food that your family liked better – or worse? Please share!

If you like this recipe, here are a few others you may fancy:

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons

Roasted Sweet Potato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons | Teaspoonofspice.com

Healthy Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Healthy Loaded Baked Potato Soup | Teaspoonofspice.com

Red Lentil Soup with Frazzled Onions

Red Lentil & Carrot Soup with Frazzled Onions | Teaspoonofspice.com

Emily @ Zen & Spice

Wednesday 24th of September 2014

I LOVE wedding soup. They make it at my work, but the broth to noodle/meatball ratio is always off so it's like noodles with a teeny bit of broth. I've been wanting to find a good recipe to make at home :)

Serena Ball

Thursday 25th of September 2014

This soup rocked. I didn't add as much broth the first time and it was barely enough broth - as I like more. But you'd probably like the lower range! (:

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