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;

Once Upon a Plate ~ The Recipes

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!