Italian Wedding Soup

back. All right, so let’s get into it. I’m going to show you guys how I like to make one of my all-time favorite soups, and that is none other than Italian wedding soup. So, let’s get into it. So, I have five mild Italian sausages, about a pound of ground beef, some seasoned breadrumbs. I’m going to be using spinach. You can use whatever type of leafy green you would like to use. It is your soup, not mine. Spinach is not really traditional, but the other leafy greens that they had in the grocery store today just did not look up to par. I’m going to be using some pecarina romano, thyme, oregano. Use whatever type of small form pasta that you can get your hands on. Our store was for some reason completely sold out, so this is what I’ll be using today. Some olive oil, celery, onion, one egg, some parsley, salt, black pepper, I also have an onion, and you’re going to be using eight cups of chicken broth. You see that? You see that? You see that? Don’t ask me for the damn ingredient list. Come on, try. Simply food. You should know by now that you’re in for a treat. Simply food. There’s no other channel where you’d rather be. Simply food. Seafood pasta, cakes, and pies. Sing and laugh and even cry. Like and share and hit subscribe. Simply food. All righty. So, in my bowl here, I have my one lb of my ground beef. And I’m now going to add in my Italian sausages. I’m going to be removing the casing on the outside. You do not want that in there. So, go on ahead and add all of your sausages to your bowl. You can not put sausage in it if you don’t want to, but for me, it just adds a lot of flavor. And the fat that comes from the pork itself is also going to keep your meatballs nice and juicy. And one of the key ingredients to making sure that you have nice and juicy meatballs is you don’t want to overwork this. So before we start to add in anything else to this, I’m going to go on ahead and just break up the sausage and the ground beef and kind of get that kind of mixed together just a little bit, not too much. So that once I do start to add in the other ingredients, I don’t have to continue to mix it too much. So that’s perfect. This is this is about what you want it to look like. To my meat mixture, I’m also going to go in and add in about a cup of some finely chopped fresh parsley. This is going to add great flavor and of course some beautiful color. And then you can go on ahead and add in all of that beautiful parsley directly to the bowl itself. Next thing we’re going to add in is our one egg. Add that directly into the bowl. Remember, we will be using a chicken broth. And we also have pork in this, so be mindful of how much salt you add. You can always add salt to the dish, but you can’t take it away. So, I’m only going to start off with about that much coarse kosher salt. And then I’m also going to crack in some freshly cracked black pepperc corn. You can add in as much or as little as you would like. And if you want your Italian wedding soup to have a little bit of a kick to it, you could also add in some crushed red pepper flakes, but I’m going to keep this pretty traditional today. To my bowl, I’m also going to add in a half a cup of the Italian uh breadcrumbs. Those are seasoned. And then I’m going to go in and I’m going to grate in roughly about a cup worth of the Pecarina Romano. You can add in Parmesan Reano as well. That’s also absolutely lovely. This is just the cheese that I wanted to work with today. I’m going to add in about a cup. So, this is what it’s looking like. And now, with clean hands, we’re just going to go in and gently give this a mix. Try your hardest to not overm mix this. Once you can see that everything is fully incorporated, stop mixing. And that right there is what you want your meat mixture to look like. So, now let’s go on ahead and form the balls. And I know you guys are going to think that I am absolutely insane, but I want to show you how small I want my meatballs to be. The key to making a really good Italian wedding soup I learned back when I was first learning how to make this is that they need to be really really small. So, what I have here is one of those fruit um haulers and you know rollers. This is about how big I’m going to get them. So, I’m going to scoop some of the meat out like so. About about that much. Put it in my hands and let me show you how tiny they’re going to be. And this is going to take a while, but that’s okay. Okay, just sit down. Get comfortable. This is how small you want your meatball to be. Roughly about that size. Okay, no bigger than that. So, I’m going to repeat that process to all of this. I have a pan over here and you guys will see how many meatballs we’re going to get in just a few moments. But this is my little trick to making sure that they’re all uniform and small. All righty, you guys. So, I have all of my little meatballs all done. And as you can see, they are very tiny, but that’s the way you want them to be. You want them to be able to fit on a soup spoon. You don’t need you don’t want them big enough where you need a fork and a knife. Okay. So, now that all my meatballs are done, I can go on ahead and place these in the fridge while I work on making the veggies. And so, like I said, the veggies that we’re going to be using in this soup are going to be celery, carrots, and onion. Now, you do want these to be relatively small. You don’t want any big chunks. So, I actually like to chop all of this down into nice small bite sizes. Uh, but that’s really a matter of preference. You can cut it down as big or as small as you would like. And as far as the quantity is concerned, that’s also up to you. I’m probably only going to put in about a cup to about a cup and a half of each of the ingredients. Maybe a little bit less on the onion because I don’t want it to be too onion heavy, but definitely a cup of each to start with. So, I’m going to continue to break all of these down and then I’ll come back and I’ll show you what all of this looks like once it’s all done. You can now go on ahead and add all of your celery to the bowl and add all of those to the bowl. And we can go on ahead and add the onion to the bowl. All in all, I will say I probably used about a cup of onion, about a cup to a cup and a half of the carrots, and about a cup to a cup and a half of the celery. We can go on ahead and set these to the side, and let’s go on ahead and mince down about seven to eight cloves of garlic. so that you end up with about 2 Tbsp of minced garlic. All right, beautiful people. Let’s start browning off these meatballs. I’m going to go in with a decent amount of some olive oil at the bottom. Now, as you guys can see, I’m going to be adding in just a few at a time. I do not want to overcrowd this pan. So, I’m going to be doing all of this in batches. You want to make sure that you fully cook these through, but please make sure that you do not overcook them. You don’t want them to be dried out. This really should only like once this pot comes up to heat, these meatballs should take less than two to three minutes to finish cooking. Plus, it’s going to be boiling inside of the hot liquid for a little while. So, you know, I would I would air on the side of a little underdone than overcooked. And once your meatballs are nice and golden brown like this, you can go on ahead and remove them out of the pan and sit them on a wire rack so that the excess oil can drain off. But my god, look at how beautiful that is. I mean, honestly, I could just eat these meatballs just like this. My god. And if you’re left with a lot of excess oil, you can go on ahead and remove it, but leave about 2 to 3 tablespoons worth. And now we can go on ahead and add in our celery, our onions, and our carrots. Make sure your heat is not up too high. And as the water is released from your veggies, all of that stuff at the bottom of the pan is going to come up and that’s going to be great flavor. Keep mixing this around. Allow this to cook for about two to three minutes. And as always, like I say, you know, when that water gets released out of those veggies, it cleans the bottom of that pan right up. And all of that stuff that was at the bottom of the pan is just additional flavor. This is exactly what you want. I’m going to allow this to go for about another minute or so before I add in the garlic. I can now go on ahead and add in all of that delicious garlic and continue to mix. For my chicken broth today, I’m going to be adding in four tablespoons of this to eight cups of hot water. You can now go ahead and start adding in your eight cups of your stock or broth I should say. We are now going to allow this to come up to a simmer. Now that this is coming up to a simmer, I’m going to add in two cups of that delicious pasta. I’m going to also reintroduce the meatballs back to the pot. Add in my last few meatballs. Give this a gentle, gentle mix. And just when you can tell that the pasta is almost done, I’m now going to go in and add in a hefty handful of the fresh spinach or whatever leafy green that you want to put in. And very, very gently incorporate this into the pot. My god, this is just Oh my god, it’s just y’all don’t understand how much this is one of my favorite soups. And don’t worry, this spinach is going to cook down beautifully. Oh my god, it’s going to be so good. It’s like love in a pot. It’s just my god. Let’s Let’s get ready to go plate this up. Let’s go plate it up so I can show y’all how I really do it. And just as an FYI, throughout the cooking process, as any of the fat came or I should say the oil came floating to the top, I just skinned it off so that I can end up with a pretty decently clear broth. Of course, it’s not going to be crystal clear and frankly you really don’t want it to be. You want some of that oil to be in there because it’s going to give a great flavor. But this is about how much I end up skimming off the top. And that is what I’ve been left with. My god. And that there, my friends, is how I make my Italian wedding soup. I hope you all try this recipe because this one is absolutely fabulous. All right, y’all. Let’s go in for a taste test. Now, this is a recipe that I have been looking forward to trying for quite some time. It’s super super hot. Um, but oh my god, here we go. Got my pasta, my meatball. [Music] Okay, here we go. This is ridiculous. It is so good. Oh my god. Jesus. Mm-m. Mm-m. Mm- mm- mm mm- mm woo. Period. We hope that you enjoyed it. I see why. If you haven’t took the time, make sure you subscribe. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. Simply a fool fight. [Music]