Italian Wedding Soup

I'm not sure I can truly call this Italian Wedding Soup because in every recipe I looked up, it instructed that mini meatballs be made from scratch with a blend of meats, seasonings and fresh breadcrumbs. However, I had seen a soup recipe in a video recently where the creator just took Italian sausage out of the casing and rolled it into little balls. I think it was for a tomato-based soup that was a bit different than Italian wedding soup.

So, since I had that in my head, I decided I'd skip that step of making meatballs and just use the mild Italian sausage that I had in my fridge. I'm always up for a good shortcut that will still produce something delicious without extra steps and added time. I didn't have another meat on hand to blend with the sausage and making fresh breadcrumbs just seemed like an extra step I didn't want to bother with as I was trying to put a pot of soup together after an afternoon of work and then shopping - while I also had my laptop open trying to get through email that had piled up since Christmas.

So, I used the sausage (didn't even have to remove it from the casing) and just pulled off chunks of the raw sausage with a spoon. If it looked round enough, I didn't even form it. I just plopped it in a skillet and then I browned them for a few minutes. They don't have to be cooked all the way through because they will cook further when you add them to the soup. 

Ingredients:

Olive oil

A dozen baby carrots, sliced

1/4 while onion, diced

1/4 green pepper (most recipes called for celery, which I didn't have, so I used some green bell pepper instead

2 tsp. minced garlic

8 cups of chicken broth

Italian seasoning

12 ounces ground mild Italian sausage

1 cup DeCecco Acini de pepe pasta

6 ounces chopped spinach

Parmesan cheese

Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of your soup pot, add carrot, onion and pepper. Saute until softened. Add garlic and cook for another minute or two. Add broth and seasoning and bring to a boil. 

While you wait for your broth to boil, form sausage into little balls and brown in a separate skillet. Remove from pan onto a paper-towel lined plate. Once broth is boiling, add pasta and sausage and boil for 8-10 minutes or until pasta is cooked. Add spinach during last minute of cooking.

Serve and top with Parmesan cheese and serve with a warm dinner roll.