In the cooler months when you are craving something warm and comforting for lunch or dinner, look no further than this Healthy Italian Wedding Soup. This is not your average soup: it’s packed with flavor and textural components like lean beef meatballs, mini pasta, and fresh spinach. This soup is easy to make, family-friendly, and healthy. Made with all real ingredients, you can feel good about eating this soup and serving it to your family. Enjoy it on its own, or serve it alongside a salad or sandwich for a bigger meal.
What is Italian Wedding Soup? What makes this one healthy?
Italian wedding soup is a soup that usually contains green vegetables and meat; it is popular at Italian-American restaurants. There are several variations of the soup, ranging from using small meatballs (like I do here) to using sausage, or even adding chicken to the soup. The greens also can vary from escarole, kale, and spinach (I use spinach here). The soup also usually includes pasta of some sort, usually small in shape (like pastina, orzo, or acidi di pepe). I used pastina here, and I love it.
Really, this soup is very easy to make, and has very simple flavors. The most time consuming part of making this soup is rolling out the tiny meatballs, but I promise, it’s worth it. Each bite of soup has a tiny meatball, some pasta, broth, and vegetables, and it’s filling and absolutely delicious.
What makes this version healthy? Not much has been tweaked here, except that I use olive oil spray instead of olive oil (to cut down on calories and fat) and I use 96/4 extra lean ground beef, as opposed to the traditional Italian mix for meatballs, which can include veal, pork, and a higher fat beef.
All in all, this soup is made with real ingredients, and something you can feel good about eating. You can also feel good about feeding your family this soup because of the quality of ingredients used.
What you will need to make Healthy Italian Wedding Soup
To make this soup, you will need the following ingredients:
- 96/4 extra lean ground beef
- For this recipe, I used Laura’s Lean Ground beef. I found it at Target while I was shopping one day; what a find! You can not beat the macros for this cut of meat.
- egg
- seasoned Italian breadcrumbs
- grated Parmesan cheese
- dried oregano
- kosher salt
- garlic
- fresh cracked pepper
- fresh parsley
- olive oil spray
- carrots
- onion
- celery
- reduced sodium chicken broth
- small pasta
- I used pastina.
- fresh spinach leaves
How to make Healthy Italian Wedding Soup
There are two main parts to this recipe: making the meatballs, and cooking the soup.
Making the mini meatballs
These mini meatballs are the star of the show. To make these mini meatballs, simply combine all of the meatball ingredients into a mixing bowl. Make sure the parsley and garlic cloves are minced super fine so that they blend into the meat (no one wants to bite into a large piece of garlic or parsley leaf). Once the meat is mixed, form small meatballs with your hands. The meatballs should be 1/2-3/4″ in diameter; you will get anywhere from 40-50 meatballs. The size can vary slightly, it doesn’t matter. The more rustic the better!
To cook the meatballs, preheat a frying pan over medium to medium high heat. Add olive oil spray. Working in batches, cook the meatballs for 2 minutes per side. You are not looking to fully cook the meatballs, you are just looking for a golden brown outside. They will finish cooking later in the soup. Once done, remove the meatballs and set them aside on a plate.
Making the soup
While the meatballs cook, start the soup. Dice the carrot, onion and celery. Mince the garlic. Put a large pot or Dutch oven over medium to medium high heat. Add olive oil spray, and then sauté the carrot, onion and celery. Cook the vegetables for about 10 minutes or until they are tender. Then, add the garlic and cook for another minute.
Add the chicken broth and the salt, and bring the liquid to a boil. Then, add the pasta and the partially cooked meatballs. Reduce the heat to simmer, and cover the pot. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked and the meatballs are cooked through. Then, stir in the fresh spinach.
This recipe makes 6 portions at a heaping 1.5 cup each.
Healthy Italian Wedding Soup
Equipment
- frying pan
- dutch oven or large pot
Ingredients
Mini Beef Meatballs
- 1 lb 96/4 extra lean ground beef
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tbsp parsley, fresh, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- fresh cracked pepper
Soup
- 1 cup carrots, diced
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 1 cup celery, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
- 4 oz pastina, mini pasta, like acini di pepe, pastina, etc.
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 6 oz fresh spinach leaves
Instructions
- Combine the meatball ingredients in a mixing bowl, using your hands.
- Form into 40-50 mini meatballs, about 1/2-3/4" in diameter.
- Preheat a frying pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add olive oil spray to the pan.
- Fry the meatballs in batches; cook for 2 minutes, then flip and cook for another 2 minutes.
- The meatballs will not be cooked through, we are just looking for some color on the outside.
- Remove the meatballs from the pan and set aside on a plate, then cook the second batch.
- In the meantime, preheat a Dutch oven or large pot over medium to medium high heat. Add olive oil spray.
- Add the diced carrot, onion and celery to the Dutch oven. Cook for 10 minutes or until the vegetables are soft and tender.
- Add the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant.
- Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Add the salt.
- Add the pasta and the pre-cooked meatballs to the pot.
- Reduce the heat to simmer, and cover with the lid.
- Cook for 10-15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked and the meatballs are cooked through.
- Stir in the spinach.
- Note: As the soup sits, the pasta will absorb the broth and the liquid will reduce significantly.
Weight Watchers
Notes
- 5 WW points (all plans)
Nutrition
You can also try these other soups:
Tortellini Soup with Chicken Sausage and Spinach
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I cannot wait to make this!!
Cannot wait to try this soup!
This soup is delicious! So easy, just rolling meatballs and chopping veggies. The meatballs are perfect & so satisfying.
So delicious! Another family favorite!!
Light, tasty and such good flavor. Making a loaf of rustic bread to go with it!
I am so excited to make this tonight! I know it says serves 6, but would you say a serving is how many cups worth, I am trying to portion it out for my WW points
Wow!!! This soup will be a staple in my house this winter! It was unanimously approved by my whole family.
I made this tonight and it was so good!! Perfect balance of flavors and it was so easy to make. I bought a pre-chopped celery/carrot/onion mix at my local grocery store and it took a ton of the prep work out of it, which made this an easy weeknight meal. The mini meatballs are so fun! I don’t typically like soup, but I will 100% be making this again! Thanks Steph for a great recipe.
Delicious and filling. My family loved it.
Just made this for my daughter’s to take for lunch!!! love, love, love! Thanks so much, Steph.
Made this today and it is delicious!! I substituted the ground beef with ground chicken and i used small tortellini. Another great recipe, thank you Stephanie!
My husband loves Italian Wedding soup and he said it was delicious and I agree with him! I will definitely be making it again.
Delicious! I made this Italian Wedding Soup for dinner tonight. It tasted better than I have had at any restaurant. Another great recipe, Stephanie! I received rave reviews from my husband and Father-in-law, whom by the way are Italian. I used my own chicken broth that I had in the fridge. If you like to make your own broth this is a great change from the same old chicken noodle soup, which is what I usually made, but not anymore! Yes, making the meatballs is a little time consuming but definitely well worth it!
Best soup I’ve had in a while. So filling, so flavorful, easy to make. Love it
I made this last night for my lunch meal prep and it is fantastic. Super easy to make and very delicious. Thank you for another “keeper” recipe!
This soup is a big favorite in my house! I love your meatball recipe.
Just made this and it was delish!
Made this tonight as a side with dinner. It was wonderful! I will be making it again 😃
So delicious!! I substituted turkey for beef (because I don’t eat red meat) and it was amazing!! Another wonderful recipe!!
Just made this for dinner for tomorrow night but of course had to taste test. Wow!! Absolutely delicious. The meatballs alone are so good! It wasn’t any surprise that this was going to be amazing since all of her recipes are always so delicious!!
This soup is wonderful on a cold day, or any day! The meatballs are so flavorful! Thank you for another recipe that I will be sure to make again!
I made this for dinner and loved it! I prepped the meatballs and chopped the veggies in the morning so when I came home from work it all came together so quickly! It was delicious!
This was definitely a winner. So flavorful and satisfying.
Wow! My family absolutely loved this soup, from the 2 and 5yo’s and on up! Such great flavor! I think it is the best soup I’ve ever made and I’ve made a handful of different types! Thanks for sharing this!
I have said to Stephanie before on Instagram that soup is my favorite food so I’m super excited that she’s come out with a few soup recipes now! This one was incredible! My whole family was practically licking their bowls! We bulked it up with about twice the vegetables and extra broth so we could have bigger servings. It didn’t feel skimpy on the meatballs or pasta even so. I give it 10/10.
One of my favorite recipes!! Love this soup! It quickly became one of our family favorites.
This is a very close dupe for my grandma’s wedding soup! My husband agrees!! I thought about adding shredded chicken like Grandma did, and possibly egg.
Super easy to put together. The meatballs are amazing! I’d been looking forward to this soup and it did not disappoint. So, so good!!
Made this for meal prep this week! So delicious! So easy! Will definitely make this again!
This soup is absolutely delicious!! My whole fAmily loves it. My husband already asked me to make a batch for my in laws
Finally made this today. A little less salty than I prefer, however, it is delicious and the punch of parm in the meatballs is the clincher!
Made this tonight for dinner. So flavorful and delicious! Thanks, Steph!
Loved loved loved, will be making it again on a regular basis!
Love this soup! It’s perfectly seasoned and I love the lemon and heat in it. You feel moderately healthy with the turkey meatballs and still get full with the orzo in it! Carissa knows what she’s doing with these recipes, delicious!
A family favorite!
Second time making this delicious recipe, my husband and young kids both love it too!
Amazing soup!!! A huge hit in my family! Just got another request to make it again!! I hate rolling meatballs- but it’s totally worth it! THANK YOU STEPH for all your amazing recipes! I follow you and love to make your food! Always delish!!