Italian Meatball Soup

Some times you just need a big bowl of yummy soup! This soup combines a delicious tomato broth with pasta, spinach, parmesan and homemade meatball. Italian Meatball Soup is loaded with flavor but doesn’t actually take all that long to prepare.

You might be wondering why I opted to cook the pasta separately. While, yes, you can gain some flavor to the pasta by cooking it in the soup, it doesn’t work in this recipe for two reasons. Since the soup is mostly simmered, so it’s not actually hot enough to really cook the noodles. And if you cooked the soup hot enough to boil the noodles, the flavor would drastically change. Secondly, you want the noodles to have some bite to them (al dente) so that they add that texture to the soup. If you were to cook the noodles in the broth, they would likely become very mushy.

These meatballs are super easy to make and pack a lot of flavor. They also work great in meatball subs, on pizza and in other pasta dishes. I do suggest that you use a food scoop to portion out the meatballs. This is the best way to make sure they are all basically the same size. This isn’t just for the aesthetic of the dish but so that they all cook evenly at the same rate.

It is important to use fresh spinach for this recipe. If you use frozen spinach it will not only not have the desired taste but it may also get watered down as frozen spinach tends to have excess water in it. I suggest serving this soup with some good crusty Italian bread (maybe buttered) so you can sop up all that delicious tomato broth.

Now Let’s Get Cookin’!

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Italian Meatball Soup

A flavorful tomato based broth with parmesan meatballs and pasta.

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Ingredients

• 1 lb Short Pasta rotini, macaroni, penne
• 2 28oz can Crushed Tomatoes
• 1 qt Beef Broth
• ½ Medium White Onion minced
• 4 Garlic Cloves minced
• 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 2 cups Fresh Baby Spinach roughly chopped
• ½ cup Parmesan Cheese shredded, for garnish

For the Meatballs

• 2 lb Ground Beef
• 1 cup Panko Crumbs
• 1 tsp Onion Powder
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 tsp Basil
• 1 Egg beaten
• 1 cup Parmesan Cheese grated

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350degF.
• In a large pot over medium heat, add crushed tomatoes, beef broth, onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Bring just to a bubble and reduce heat slightly.
• In a mixing bowl, combine meatball ingredients. On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, form meat mixture into 1-inch balls (should make at least 36 meatballs). Place in oven for 20 minutes.
• Start water boiling for pasta.
• Remove meatballs from oven and add to tomato broth. Let continue to simmer until pasta is ready.
• Once the pasta water is at a rolling boil, add pasta and cook as directed on package. Drain in a colander and rinse with cool water.
• Stir chopped spinach into soup.
• Add a portion of pasta to a shallow bowl. Ladle meatballs (approximately 6 per serving) and broth over top. Sprinkle with shredded parmesan.