recipe: Italian wedding soup

this is another recipe i've made a bunch of times but somehow never made its way onto this blog. it's not necessarily "traditional" wedding soup since i like mine with shredded chicken and the teeny tiny meatballs, and pastina... so it becomes a very thick, heavy soup. the more the merrier in the soup pot... and it is SO good! definitely a great winter recipe, or to make as a lead in to a big Italian meal. perfection.

i've always used Giada De Laurentiis' recipe from foodnetwork.com as my base recipe, adding in all the little extras i like and a few substitutions here and there. it makes a pretty large pot of soup which is great because it's freezes well (just make sure you freeze it WITHOUT the pastina and egg in it - these are always to better to add in at the time you're heating the soup to eat).

ingredients list: (makes about 6-8 large servings)
- 1 recipe for Italian meatballs, scaled down to 1/2 inch diameter meatballs (*about 30-40 mini meatballs. i used this recipe while making a larger batch of meatballs)
- 12 cups low-sodium chicken broth (i used homemade broth from a rotisserie chicken)
- 1 large chicken breast
- 2 tbsp freshly grated parmesan, plus extra for garnish
- 1 lb spinach, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup carrots, sliced into small matchsticks 
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1-1&1/2 cups pastina pasta
- 2 large eggs


to make: 
make meatballs according to recipe directions. 

to begin soup, bring the broth to a boil in a large pot over high heat. add the chicken breast, spinach, carrots, onion, garlic, and salt & pepper. cook until chicken is fully cooked through, about 25-30 minutes.

remove chicken from pot and use 2 forks to shred chicken into small pieces. return shredded chicken to the stock pot. 

add meatballs and pastina, cooking soup for an additional 5-8 minutes until pastina is cooked through.

in a small bowl, whisk the eggs and cheese together. in the final minute of cooking the soup (while the pastina is almost done), stir the soup in a circular motion. gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin strands of egg (about 1 minute). 

check the soup for final salt/pepper or other seasoning test before serving. add additional parmesan cheese before serving if desired. it's best served with a nice big hunk of Italian bread for dipping on the side. YUMMM!