Italian Wedding Soup with Tortellini

My version of Italian wedding soup is made with a flavor-packed broth, equally delicious savory meatballs, and super hearty tortellini.

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There’s always been a bit of controversy surrounding Italian wedding soup. Do they call it that because it’s traditionally served at Italian weddings, or because the soup is so well balanced that it’s a “marriage” of flavors? I personally believe the latter, because while I’ve been to a handful of Italian weddings, I’ve never seen Italian wedding soup served at one. I have, however, eaten my fair share of Italian wedding soup, and just about every time I take a bite of it I think “wow, these flavors really do go well together.” So since the weather is now officially cold, and we’re well into soup season, I’m bringing you my version of Italian wedding soup, made with hearty tortellini and flavor-packed meatballs. 

My brother Ben and I tackled this Italian wedding soup as a team. He made the meatballs (one of his favorite foods to make) and I made the soup base. I’d put the number of meatballs that Ben has made over the years in the thousands. So he knew exactly how to make these meatballs mostly traditional in their ingredients (for a pretty traditional soup) but pack them with a lot of flavor. To achieve this, Ben used tons of fresh herbs (like way more than you think you would need) and lots of pecorino Romano cheese for saltiness and nuttiness. Plus, the years of meatball-making have taught him a few tricks. He sautés the onion and garlic before adding them into the meatballs, getting them nice and caramelized. This provides a deeply savory and slightly sweet flavor to the meatballs, balancing the rest of their ingredients perfectly. 

A JAZZED UP ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP

Traditional Italian wedding soup is a simple dish to make; meatballs, little pasta (pastina or little stars), and a simple soup base of stock, carrots, celery and onions. But since we were making a slightly more jazzed up meatball, I knew I wanted to have a slightly jazzed up soup base as well. I did this in two ways; by using tortellini instead of pasta, and by packing the soup broth with tons of flavor. Tortellini might not be traditional, but it brings its an extra boost of flavor to this soup. We used classic four cheese tortellini, which is sharp and delicious, but you can use whatever flavor you want to add a little pizzazz.

In order to really inject flavor into the broth without compromising the traditional flavors, I chose to steep a bunch of extra ingredients in the soup. I went with tons of traditional herbs (parsley, basil and oregano) along with a slightly less traditionally Italian one, dill. I have a soft spot for dill in chicken soup, because it reminds me of my Jewish grandma’s matzo ball soup. So while it may not be traditionally Italian, the dill makes this soup especially homey feeling for me, and I think it its flavor works well with chicken broth. I simply tied these herbs into a bundle with twine to let them cook in the soup, and the removed them before serving.

And then, for even more flavor, I also steeped a Parmesan rind in there as well. This is one of my favorite ingredients to boost flavor in just about anything, like these lentils or in just about any tomato sauce. The flavors of this soup are still unmistakably Italian, but instead of a simple chicken broth, you have an undeniably flavor packed soup base.