Monday

Spinach Meatball Minestrone with Tortellini


This delicious soup recipe was shared on a foodie message board by a sweet friend, chefbeck, a couple of years ago.

What makes this one special are the flavorful mini spinach meatballs, which can be made ahead and frozen. If you make them ahead the soup goes together in a short amount of time.

Tortellini helps make it an extra hearty soup; I often serve it as a main course at my house, with a crisp green salad and garlic bread.


My favorite tortellini to use in this recipe are the smaller, dried 3-cheese made by Barilla. They fit very nicely on the spoon, but you can use your favorite refrigerated, or homemade tortellini if you like.



It's one of my favorite soup recipes. As several of us discovered, if you make the meatballs ahead of time and freeze them, the soup goes together very quickly ~ although it's best made the day before, it is still delicious the day it is made.


I always double the recipe for the meatballs and freeze half for the next time I make the soup.

(They are delicious on their own as an appetizer, served hot with warmed marinara sauce to dip as well!)



Please NOTE:


Beginnning with this blog entry, I'm pleased to announce a new feature for my readers which will enable copying and pasting my recipes.


Athough I do inprovise a lot of my recipes, whenever possible I'll post a link to the recipe on my secondary blog;




You can click the above link to view, as well as copy and paste the recipe.

Thanks for stopping by, and as always I appreciate your comments!






13 comments:

  1. Hi, Mari...this looks delicious! I just made some meatballs yesterday to use in Italian wedding soup - I like the combination of hearty meatballs and a relatively light soup. And thank you for creating your secondary blog, because I know a lot of us want to copy your gorgeous recipes!

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  2. oh that looks so good! i was going to skip dinner, now i am craving your soup...

    off to check out your link~

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  3. This looks fantastic.

    Great new feature!

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  4. Oh Mary...this soup is an old friend for us too...we love it too!
    L ~xoxox..


    Love the new feature!

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  5. This soup looks great and I am headed over to view the recipe next. I have never seen those dried tortellini's in the stores around here. I will have to look closer next time.

    Your gorgeous photos always amaze me!

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  6. Definitely a beautiful soup! I've seen those tortellini but never tried them.

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  7. Very beautiful soup & it sounds really good. I just love tortellini soup, it always helps to make it much more hearty.
    Debbie

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  8. That looks delicious, Mary..
    I will get some of those tortellini, I have only had the refrigerated type..
    And that plate is gorgeous!
    I will check out the meatball recipe, too, thanks!

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  9. A wonderful, hearty soup perfect for these cold winter days. We have snow on the ground this morning.

    If I have little meatballs in the freezer and tortellini on the pantry shelf I can put a fantastic soup together in no time.

    Thansk, Mari.

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  10. Thank you for your comments everyone! If you try it, I hope you like it as much as I do.

    Linda, you and I have been making this one for a few years now, yes?! xo~m.

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  11. Oh, that soup looks so good.
    and....Yay! We can now get your recipes.
    Thank you so much for the link/new blog.
    ~mjny

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  12. It's morning.
    I slept in.
    I haven't eaten.



    You have me famished.
    I may make this today.

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  13. Mari, I love the plate...where'd you get that? The soup is very colourful and surely a meal for many.

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Thank you for your comments, friends ~ they make my day!

A Sampling of my food . . .

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