In our family, like most, food is an important part of celebrating holidays, birthdays and special events. We do the traditional Thanksgiving, but the rest of the holidays are full of Italian recipes handed down from my mom’s side of the family. Italian wedding soup is one of our special occasion celebration foods, and it’s only because the tiny meatballs are so annoying to make that we don’t eat it more often!
I have no doubt that a lot of these recipes have been “Americanized,” since my mom is 2nd generation Italian-American. I can better understand how and why that happens now, living in Japan. Sometimes you have to make compromises with your comfort food because you can’t find the standard ingredients or they are prohibitively expensive.
The other day, I asked my husband what some of his favorite dishes were so I could write some of them up for A&C. Italian wedding soup was one of his first suggestions, so I thought I’d share it with you! My favorite part of my family’s recipe are the Parmesan “soup cubes.” I can’t find a recipe online for anything similar, so I’m not sure if there’s a better name for them (or an Italian one? Leave a comment if you know!). They are basically a combination of baked parmesan, eggs and flour that puff up and become slightly spongy. You cut them into squares and put them on top of the soup, like croutons on a salad, and they absorb some of the broth to become little squares of cheesy, brothy deliciousness.
And the meatballs! It might seem strange to drop the raw meatballs directly into the broth without browning them first, but they stay so tender and moist when cooked this way. Just make sure you cut a meatball open before serving the soup to ensure that it’s cooked all the way through. And bring your broth to a boil for a few minutes after adding the meatballs, just to be safe . . .
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 1 chicken bouillon cube
- 3/4 cup small pasta (I used orzo, but any shape would work)
- 4 cups of leafy greens (I used spinach but kale, chard or escarole would work. In a pinch, you could substitute frozen spinach)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
- freshly ground pepper
- 9 oz ground meat (I used half ground beef and half ground pork)
- Serve with parmesan soup cubes (recipe below)
- Combine the breadcrumbs and milk in a medium-sized bowl. Add the egg, Italian seasoning, parmesan cheese, and a few cracks of fresh pepper and stir to combine. Add the ground meat and mix well.
- Roll the meat mixture into miniature meatballs, about 1/2 inch in diameter.
- Cover and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
- Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottom dutch oven or pot over medium heat.
- Add the celery, carrot, onion, garlic, and bay leaves. Add a dash of salt and a few cracks of fresh pepper. Saute until the onions become translucent, about 8 minutes.
- Add the chicken stock and the bouillon cube and bring to a boil. Add the meatballs a few at a time, raising the heat to maintain a low boil. Stir gently as you add the meatballs so they don't get stuck to the bottom of the pot. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through. You can make the soup ahead to this point and refrigerate, if necessary.
- Bring the soup up to a simmer if you refrigerated it. Add the greens and the pasta. Cover and simmer until the pasta is cooked, stirring occasionally so the pasta doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot (cooking time will vary based on what kind of pasta you use). Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Pass the parmesan soup cubes at the table for people to add to their own bowl.
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley
- 3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/8 cup flour
- freshly ground pepper
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Mix the eggs, baking powder, parsley and a few cracks of fresh pepper in a medium bowl. Add the cheese, stirring well to combine. Add flour and mix well. It should be the consistency of a thick batter. If it's too thin, add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Grease a small baking dish of about 24 square inches (mine was a 4x6 inch glass dish, but anything close to that will work). Pour the batter into the dish.
- Bake until the batter has set and the top becomes a light golden brown color, about 30 minutes.
- Turn out of the dish and let cool on a cooling rack. When cool, cut into small cubes and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
YUM O!!
Hi! Your Italian wedding soup has been nominated as one of the “Best Italian Wedding Soup Recipes on the Net”. To vote for it, please visit https://www.easyitalianrecipes.org/soup-recipes/best-italian-wedding-soup-recipes-on-the-net-vote-for-your-favorite/ (your recipe is positioned at #68).
You are the only other chef I’ve ever seen use “soup cubes”, besides me!
My family (Italian on both sides) has made this soup for as long as I can remember.
Becuase of the tedious work involved, (not your basic chicken soup) we only seem to eat it on Thanksgiving and Christmas which then turned the name into “Christmas Soup”.
We have always called the “soup cubes” croutons and mine are made with a slight variation, I make them as you would a pancake and then dice them up.
Guess what’s for dinner tonight?
Cynthia, we call them “croutons” too! But I didn’t think it really made sense to call them that for non-family audience on the blog. Do you know where in Italy your family comes from? I wonder if it’s a regional thing. We’re from Sicily (Cefalu) and Abruzzo. Hope your “Christmas Soup” was amazing 😉
My family is from Milan, Rome, Naples, Gildone, Abruzzo, and Calabria. We’re ALL over the map!
On one side of the family they only used parmesan cheese and the other side used romano cheese which makes a difference in the taste of the soup. Again, a regional recipe.
Dinner was Molto Bene’!
Thank you!!! My sister’s and I have been trying to replicate my mom’s “egg squares” or “croutons” for the longest time. I finally found your recipe and it’s exactly how my mom use to make hers…I think she would add her own special twists here and there. I shared w/ my siblings. My mom’s family was from Abruzzo and Riccia.
Hi Kim, I’m so glad you found it helpful! What kind of twists did she add? I’ve never played around with the recipe and would love to hear what she did:)
My family makes these soup cubes also. Our variation is to add finely minced prosciutto and/ or
minced spinach. We cut these squares up into 1/2 inch cubes and add them to homemade chicken soup with the soup chicken diced . It is absolutely delicious and saves time with not having to make all the other ingredients especially the meatballs. I live in South Philly and we call this soup PIZZA soup. When the spinach is added we call it PIZZA VERDI. I believe this pizza name came from baking the batter in a round baking dish, slicing it in layers like a cake and then dicing it. Go figure. My family comes from Abruzzo.
Sounds delicious! Oh, but the meatballs are the best part! lol 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing, Rich. I love the prosciutto idea and might have to try that next time we make the soup cubes.
In my family, we use escarole and chicken stock. We brown the meatballs first, return the pulled chicken meat to the soup, and do not use orzo or dittallini. Our croutons are dry Italian bread cubes dipped into a beaten egg and romano cheese mixture and fried. My Italian family came from Abruzzo and this recipe is several generations old. I think I will try your soup cubes, since it looks much less messy than the bread cube-egg-grated cheese dip method. The taste must be very close.
Your method of making soup cubes is similar to what my Pennsylvania Dutch grandmother called “rivels.” She mixed a cup of flour with an egg and a pinch of salt until it formed small balls. Dropped into simmering chicken corn soup, these tiny dumplings puffed up, and took the place of today’s more commonly used pot pie noodles.
Hi Anita, thanks so much for sharing your family’s recipe! My family is also from Abruzzo, and I imagine that there are as many versions of wedding soup as there are families in Abruzzo 🙂 It’s so interesting to see what other people do.
The fried croutons sound amazing, but they also sound like a ton of work! Try my family’s version, you might like it (although there’s nothing like an old family recipe).
Our family makes the croutons the exact same way. I was surprised to find such a precise recipe that matches exactly how we make them. We refer to it as “pizza” for the soup and it’s from my fathers Abruzzese home style cooking.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Giulia, that’s so great! I imagine “pizza” is more authentic than “croutons,” lol. Maybe I’ll see if I can get my family to start referring to them as pizza instead. Thanks so much for your comment, I can’t wait to tell my family about it!
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Thank you for posting this!
My grandma used to make soup like this. We called them soup sponges. I’ve been looking all over the Internet for a recipe! I’m excited to finally make some. My grandma is Sicilian and my grandpa is Abruzzo.
Soup sponges! How accurate! I love it <3. My family was the same: Sicilian grandma, Abruzzese grandpa. Thanks for stopping by and for commenting!
Thank you for recipe,, my aunt was the only one who made the special croutons and I never had a recipe. Now I can make them. She always used them in clear chicken soup as part of a very large meal with many courses.
Hi Peg! So glad to hear that. I hope you and your family enjoy them.
ps my aunt’s family came from Abruzzo also
Hi! My family also makes this “wedding soup bread”. Your recipe is the same as my grandmothers except that she used Pecorino Romano cheese. We always called these “soup cakes”. I have also heard them referred to as soup breads. Our soup was a chicken stock base, a lot of the little meatballs, which we did brown first. We always used spinach and never added pasta to the soup, but instead would scramble eggs and whisked them into the soup when it reached a boil.
My grandmother was from Sant’Omero in the province of Teramo, Abruzzo, Italy.
My grandfather was from Norcia in the province of Perugia, Umbria, Italy.
From reading some of the other comments, it seems as though this bread is definitely from the Abruzzo region of Italy.
Hi Karen, thank you so much for the amazing comment 🙂 Next time I’ll have to whisk some egg into the soup, it sounds fantastic! (My grandma used to make us chicken stock with Pecorino and a whisked egg when we were sick.) I just love hearing about other family traditions – thank you for sharing.
please remove me from all followup comments Thanks RG
My husband’s mother made these and called them croutons…I could never find a good recipe till I found yours. Thanks
I love this! We have never heard of anyone else making these but our family, and finally I see that others do indeed know this recipe!
My aunt used to make this, and we called it “Holiday Soup”. It was made with chicken and no meatballs – just greens, carrots, onions, celery, and “those yellow squares”. We never had a name for them, but my mom started calling them croutons just so we could have a reference (my mom is Croatian and married into an Italian family). My family is from Sicily.
The difference in our recipe is that we use Romano instead of Parmesan cheese, and the only ingredients are egg, cheese, and flour. Also, we have never baked it; we drop the batter by large tablespoonfuls into a frying pan and make mini pancakes. As they cool, we cut them into the squares. My aunt lived with us since I was 6, and when she’d make them, my sister and I would sneak the mini pancakes from the cooling plate and eat them just like that!
Thank you so much for posting this! I might have to try baking them. It would save a lot of time.
Thank you for sharing this, Monette! It’s so interesting to see how other families have similar traditions. I love it, these sound amazing (and very similar! maybe my family just did a lazy version of these…?)
Thank you, your recipe is closest to my mother in law’s wonderful soup, probably the all time family favorite food. I almost want to keep it secret. She called the Soup croutons Pizza Rustica and instead of escarole or in addition to she would add Cardone or cardoons diced in small cubes, better pre cooked separately. Celery has been used but is a poor substitute since the flavor is too strong. Her pizza rustica looked a little lighter and more golden.
I know, it’s so tempting to keep these family recipes a secret. My desire to share delicious food with everyone usually wins out though! We call the soup cubes “croutons” too 🙂
Yes, Abruzzese , Orsogna. Look in Ada Boni’s wonderful book on Italian Regional cooking.
Thanks for this recipe! I’m a bit late to the thread. We also use the croutons. Kim, my mother’s side is from Abruzzi also, and my paternal grandmother would always refer to the croutons disparagingly as “Bruzzes bread,” so my Mom co-opted the name to use in a positive sense, and that’s what we have always called them.