30-Minute Meatball Soup will warm your soul, lighten your load of dishes, and please the meat-eater in your life!
Can you believe I have another meat recipe for you? Me either. Since the BF came back, I’ve had to figure out how to incorporate meat-friendly meals with my meat-less meals. This has presented its challenges, but has also provided opportunities for us to come together and up our creativeness on how to use what we have to make something out of the meat he must have.
Do any of you non-meaters out have this same predicament? I’d love your suggestions. Anyway, back to the soup at hand…
We were looking at a pound of ground beef, with pretty much zero idea what to do with it, especially given what little we had in our fridge.
I was on board with cooking up a quick and easy pasta dish, like this one, but he wanted a full-on meat dish too, and time was running out.
So the BF mixed up some mini-meatballs, and I got busy making a mirepoix (mixture of onion, carrots, and celery), adding some garlic, red pepper flakes, and broth we had left over from risotto. We threw both of our creations together, boiled for a bit, and bam – dinner was served!
I thought this meatball soup that we randomly tossed together one weeknight in a hurry was a one time thing.
I was wrong, and I’m not afraid to admit it. The BF asked for it again a week later (and again the next), and that’s when I knew it could be a winner. We tested it out a few times to make sure we didn’t run into any dumb luck that first time and sure enough, he liked it just as much each and every time.
Moral of my story (I know, girl with food blog can’t tell concise story): next time you need a quick, easy, meat-friendly, low-carb dinner, this is it!
Oh, and skip the low-carb thing – serve it with bread and topped with parmesan. Highly recommended!
If you want a little more to it, try adding some noodles, quinoa, or rice.
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 cup yellow onion, diced
- 2 medium carrots, diced
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- Dash red pepper flakes
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
- 6 cups broth* (vegetable or chicken)
- Parmesan cheese, for garnish
- MEATBALLS:
- 1 pound organic ground beef
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 Tablespoon parsley, chopped
- 4 basil leaves, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons panko bread crumbs
- Dash of red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- Heat oil in large stockpot over medium-high heat.
- Add onion, carrots, and celery. Stir to coat with oil and sauté for 5-7 minutes until just tender.
- Add garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. Sauté for two additional minutes.
- Add fresh parsley, stir. Add broth slowly, scraping any bits off the bottom of pan as needed.
- Bring to a boil.
- While waiting for soup to boil, mix meatballs by combining all meatball ingredients. Do not overwork. Form into ½ inch balls.
- Once soup is boiling, reduce to a simmer and add meatballs. Simmer until meatballs are fully cooked and floating, approximately 10 minutes.
- Garnish with parmesan cheese.