Italian Wedding Soup

Even though soup is good just about anytime, the recent cold weather has made soup even more enticing. This is one of my favorite soup recipes! Giada De Laurentiis is my go to for anything Italian. The recipe doesn't include pasta, but we typically boil up some small pasta (our favorite variety of pasta for this soup is picture above...not sure what it is called...sorry) to add to the soup.

Italian Wedding Soup

Ingredients:

For Meatballs-

1 small onion, grated

1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 large egg

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 slice fresh white bread, crust trimmed, bread torn into small pieces

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

8 ounces ground beef

8 ounces ground pork

freshly ground black pepper

For Soup-

12 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 pound curly endive or escarole, coarsely chopped

2 large eggs

2 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for garnish

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

To make the meatballs-

Stir the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the cheese, beef and pork. Using 1 1/2 teaspoons for each, shape the meat mixture into 1 inch diameter meatballs. Place on a baking sheet.

To make the soup-

Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and curly endive and simmer until the meatballs are cooked through and the curly endive is tender, about 8 minutes. Whisk the eggs and cheese in a medium bowl to blend. Stir the soup in a circular motion. Gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin strands of egg, about 1 minute. Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Finish soup with Parmesan cheese if desired.