Spinach Wedding Soup

My Italian Wedding Soup involves pasta and non-spinach greens, so for Passover I made a variant, inspired by The Cozy Cook’s Turkey and White Bean Spinach Soup and the contents of my fridge at the time.

Some people don’t eat rice or beans for Passover; in that case you could substitute a (small) fake Passover pasta or a permitted fake grain like quinoa. In that case, adjust the cooking times accordingly or make them in another pot.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 1 lb ground turkey
• ¼ c. onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 T parsley, minced
• ¼ c. matzah meal (or ½ c. panko)
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 1 tsp sage
• dash thyme
• 1 egg, beaten
• olive oil

Soup

• 2 T. olive oil
• ½ c. onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 4 c. chicken stock
• 1 c. water
• 1 T. lemon juice
• 1 package frozen spinach (or 6-8 c. fresh)
• ¼ c. rice (optional)
• 1 can cannellini beans
• ¼ tsp salt (or however much the stock still needs)
• black pepper to taste
• ½ tsp thyme
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

1. Mix meatball ingredients except oil.
2. Roll meatballs as small as you can tolerate, possibly with the help of a tablespoon.
3. Brown meatballs in oil in a heavy pot.
4. Remove meatballs if you need the space, and brown onions and garlic in the same pot.
5. Return meatballs to pan if they left. Add stock and water. Bring to a boil.
6. Add spices.
7. Optionally, puree a third of the beans in some broth to thicken the soup.
8. Add rice and beans.
9. Cook for the recommended rice cooking time (about 20 minutes; if the rice is already cooked, only cook 5 minutes or so to warm the new ingredients).
10. Add spinach and cook until adequately wilted-looking.
11. Stir in the egg slowly to get that egg-drop look. Cook 2 more minutes.

Variants

The original recipe only included cannellini, not rice, so you could omit the rice or reduce the cannelini, if desired.

The original recipe did not ball the meat; you can just fry up the ground turkey in small chunks or substitute sausage or another ground meat.

You could make the meatballs out of another ground meat, though in that case you might (or might not) want to adjust the meatball spices. E.g., for 1 lb. ground beef, replace the 1 tsp sage with 1 tsp basil and dash some marjoram, oregano, and/or the thyme. (Italian seasoning is not an Italian thing, but you can use 1 tsp of that instead if you have it.)

You can cook the rice outside of the soup to keep it from sucking up too much broth.