Italian Wedding Soup Recipe

#FlashbackFriday with my spin on a non-traditional Italian Wedding Soup that works well as a WWFreestyle recipe. I skipped adding in the pasta and bulked it up with veggies to make this one filling soup. The secret to all the flavor in this soup is the hard work and seasoning in the Italian Wedding Meatballs.

Enjoy as is or serve it up with some delicious garlic bread on the side.

ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP (print it!)

INGREDIENTS

Meatballs

• 1 pound extra lean ground turkey
• 3 Sweet Italian Turkey sausage links (removed from casings)
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 2 egg whites
• 2 Tbsps. grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Soup

• 2 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 medium zucchini, quartered and diced
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup diced sun dried tomatoes, not in oil
• 4 cup chicken broth
• 2 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Mix ground turkey through 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes. Roll into 1/2 inch meatballs.  I used my cookie scooper to make sure they were all the same size.  I made 60 meatballs.

3.  Place on cookie sheet & bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

4.  Heat olive oil in a large stock pot over medium heat and add onion through 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes.  Cook 4-5 minutes, until softened.

5.  Add sun dried tomatoes, broth and all of the meatballs.  Cook for 10 minutes (it really flavors the broth).  Remove from heat and wilt in spinach.

Makes 6 servings with 10 meatballs, 4 WWFreestyle Smartpoints, 7 Points+ each, (Simply Filling + 2 WPA)

Nutritional information per serving for all ingredients:

STEP-BY-STEP

Mix together all the ingredients to make the meatballs in a large bowl.

Form into 1/2 inch meatballs. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the “soup”.  Sauté the veggies.

Add in the Italian seasoning….

Roughly chopped sun dried tomatoes (this was the rest of my bag leftover from the Chicken Rollatini) and the broth….

Then the cooked meatballs and cook for 10 minutes.  The meatballs add a rich flavor to the broth.

Remove from heat and wilt in spinach.

Scoop out 10 meatballs and all the broth/veggies you want.  I actually have never even had a real deal Italian Wedding Soup so I can’t say if I made it taste like that.  The meatballs are packed with flavor and make this soup fantastic.

We both loved this…The Husband had 3 servings ~ 30 meatballs LOL!

I will be back tomorrow with my weigh in, Weekly Menu and my 1st Week Active Link Challenge results and thoughts.

Q’s

Given the Choice would you pick SOUP OR SALAD?

I am a total salad girl and will pick it over soup any day.  However, give me homemade soup on a rainy day and I will definitely skip the salad.

Night all!