Wedding Soup (2024)

As regular readers know, every October, which is Italian-American Heritage Month here in the US, we feature an Italian-American dish. This year’s entry is the famously misnamed Wedding Soup. A mistranslation of minestra maritata, a classic Neapolitan soup whose name means “married soup”, the marriage in question doesn’t involve a human couple but the “marriage” of various meats and greens.

I’ve written before about how Italian dishes tend to become more extravagant when they cross the Atlantic: richer, heavier, with more ingredients and more emphasis on meats over vegetables. Well, Wedding Soup might be the exception that proves the rule. It is one of the few instances where the New World version is actually simpler and lighter than the Old World original.

While the recipe for minestra maritata calls for a hefty mixture of four or more different meats and four different greens simmered for two or three hours, resulting in a dish that is more like a stew than a true soup, Wedding Soup is a delicate bowl of tiny meatballs and escarole briefly simmered in abundant broth. Most recipes also call for pasta—missing from minestra maritata—for good measure. Unlike minestra maritata, which is usually reserved for special occasions like Christmas or Easter, so long as you have the broth on hand, you can whip up a Wedding Soup any time in well under an hour.

In any event, while it may be simpler and lighter than minestra maritata, Wedding Soup is plenty tasty. And very comforting, perfect for these chilly autumn evenings, warming but not too filling at the same time.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 2 liters (8 cups) homemade broth, or more as needed
• 250 g (1/2 lb) escarole, about half a medium-sized head, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 250 g (1/2 lb) acini di pepe or other small soup pasta
• Salt, if needed

For the meatballs:

• 500 g (1 lb) ground beef, or a mixture of pork and beef
• 75 g (2-1/2 oz) fine breadcrumbs
• 50 g (2 oz) parmigiano-reggiano, freshly grated
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• A sprig or two of fresh parsley, finely minced
• 1 eggs
• Salt and pepper

Directions

Start by making the meatballs: Mix all the meatball ingredients in a large bowl until you have a smooth and uniform mixture. (I use my well-washed hands. It’s the easiest and quickest way to do this.) Take the mixture and form it into a ball, then throw the ball forcefully down into the bowl a few times until you have a compact mass. Wrap the mixture in plastic film and let it rest for about 20 minutes.

After it has finished resting, unwrap the mixture and pinch off olive-sized chunks, rolling them around inside the palms of your hands to form tiny meatballs. Lay them out on a tray or cutting board until needed.

Bring the broth to a gentle simmer, then add the meatballs and escarole. Let them simmer until the meatballs are fully cooked through and the escarole is tender, about 15 minutes or so.

In another pot, bring water to a boil, add a good pinch of salt and then the pasta. Boil the pasta until it is just tender. When it is done, transfer the pasta to the soup. Let it simmer along with the meatballs and escarole at the gentlest heat possible for just a minute or two.

If the soup is too thick for your taste, add a more broth or water. Taste and adjust for seasoning. You may not need any if the broth and the meatballs are already seasoned.

Serve hot, with grated cheese on the side for those who want it.

Notes

When I think Wedding Soup, I think of acini di pepe, the “peppercorn” pasta pictured above. But this tiny pasta can be a bit hard to find in stores, so feel free to substitute orzo. (Fun fact: The pasta commonly called “orzo” here in the US is called risoni in Italy. Risoni means “big rice” in Italian. The word orzo means barley and that word is used for the grain and not the pasta. Not sure how or why this pasta changed names. It seems to me that it resembles rice rather more than barley) In any event, I’ve seen versions of Wedding Soup with other small soup pastas like stelline (aka pastina) as well. I’ve even seen recipes with tubetti, which can do in a pinch but majorly alters the mouthfeel.

Most recipes for Wedding Soup have you add the pasta directly to the soup, which saves you cleaning an extra pot. But personally I prefer to cook the pasta separately, adding it to the soup pot only to finish cooking for a minute or so, so it doesn’t cloud or thicken the broth too much.

Escarole, to my mind, is the green you want for a proper Wedding Soup, but curly endive also works well. Or, taking your cue from the original Neapolitan recipe, you might want to use a mix escarole and endive. I’ve seen latter-day recipes calling for spinach, added at the last minute just until it wilts. This doesn’t particularly appeal to me. The distinct, slightly bitter flavor of the escarole or endive is what gives this soup its Italian character. I suspect spinach has crept into recipes as over time the two original greens have become less common in our supermarkets, especially outside areas with Italian communities.

Variations

Some recipes for Wedding Soup tell you to fry the meatballs before adding them to the broth. That’s not original and, to my mind, detracts from the soup. Frying alters its gentle flavor and darkens its color. It might seem odd not to fry the meatballs, but gentle poaching works perfectly in this recipe, just as it does in the lovely Sicilian soup called sciusceddu.

There’s also a version of Wedding Soup where you add a mixture of beaten egg and cheese to the soup, usually omitting the pasta. This, too, recalls one version of sciusceddu, where you mix an egg and ricotta mixture into the soup. Makes you wonder if Wedding Soup doesn’t have roots in Sicily as well as Naples. It wouldn’t surprise me. This kind of fusion of regional cuisines mirrors the Italian-American communities, where people from different regions of Italy (in the US, usually from the south) mingled together.

There’s a version of Wedding Soup, popularized by the Progresso company under the name ‘Chickarina Soup‘, where the greens are replaced with diced carrots and celery. Most copycat recipes have you sauté these aromatics, sometime with diced onion too, before adding broth and poaching the meatballs. In yet other versions, you add these aromatics in addition to the greens.

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