Italian Wedding Soup with Escarole | Clean Eating Recipe

Hey guys, it's Dani, and today I am making some clean and delicious Italian wedding soup with escarole. Now this is a great meal to add to your weekend meal prep because you can make it on a Sunday, have it as your Sunday dinner, and then use the leftovers for a warm, delicious, satisfying lunch all week long. So I'm going to start by making my meatballs. I want to keep this soup extra lean, so I'm using one pound of extra lean ground turkey. But you could also do that by using ground bison, extra lean ground beef, or even ground chicken. To that I'm going to add a third of a cup of finely diced onion, two cloves of crushed garlic, one third cup fresh chopped parsley, and remember since these meatballs are going to be really small, you want to chop up your ingredients really fine. A quarter cup of grated parmesan cheese, one quarter cup of whole wheat panko breadcrumbs, an egg, and then a half a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. I'm going to get my hands in the bowl and mix this all together. Now you want to mix this just until you have everything incorporated. Then it's time to roll up the meatballs. Now I like to take about a tablespoon, a tablespoon and a half of the meat mixture. You could certainly go smaller than that if you have the patience, but I would not recommend going any bigger. Just place that right on the palm of your hand and then top it with your opposite hand and start rolling and you will see you will form this little meatball. You're going to keep going until you've worked through all of the meat mixture and you're going to end up with somewhere between 45 to 50 meatballs. At the stove I have one pound of escarole that I've washed and chopped up. Now if you can't find escarole you could also make this work with some curly endive or even some spinach. And if you want to learn more about escarole make sure to go back and check out my escarole 101 because I cover all the basics in that video right over there. And on the stove I've got a nice big 5 quart pot with 12 cups of low sodium chicken broth coming up to a boil. Once that broth is at a boil I am going to add my meatballs right into the pot. You just want to gently drop them right in. And don't worry about them sticking because that broth is so hot it sears them on the outside as soon as they hit the water and they're good to go. Once I've got all my meatballs I'm going to top that with my escarole and then turn my timer on for 5 minutes. Now this soup doesn't take very long to cook. The escarole is going to wilt down and as soon as you see those meatballs floating up to the top that means they are cooked. The finishing touch for this soup is to take 2 eggs and whisk them together with 2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese. Then I slowly drizzle that into my soup and it creates these little strands of cheesy, salty, eggy goodness which infuses its flavor all throughout the soup. And can I please get a thumbs up for cheesy, salty, eggy goodness. And FYI if you are trying to work towards some of your personal health, fitness or weight loss goals this soup is especially great because you've got your lean protein, your dark leafy greens and you've got all that broth so it's a really filling, satisfying meal that is packed with protein, greens and you even get your fat from the cheese and the eggs. Now if you guys really want to take this soup to the next level, finish it with a little bit of fresh grated parmesan cheese and a few flakes of spicy red peppers. Mmm, mmm, mmm. There's so much flavor. The greens are tender but they still have a little bit of an edge to them, a little bit of a bite. For me, this is clean and delicious comfort food in a bowl. You absolutely must try this one and when you do, snap a picture and tag me on Instagram and or on Facebook. Now if you guys want to print this recipe, head on over to cleananddelicious.com and if you want inspiration throughout your week, make sure to follow me on my social networks. You'll find me on Facebook, Instagram, Periscope, Twitter. I'm all over the place people so let's connect. Thanks so much for watching guys. I'm Dani Spees and I will see you next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers!