MY LATEST SOUP OBSESSION | this soup is food for your soul

Hello, my friends, it's Dani, and today I am sharing my latest soup obsession. This is a recipe to warm your soul. It is a meatball soup packed with vegetables, so it's got lots of protein, tons of nutrients, and ever since I created this recipe, my family asks me to make it on a weekly basis, and so I'm super excited to share it with you. Now, if you follow me on Instagram, you may have already made this recipe because sometimes when I'm testing and creating new recipes, I share a little sneak peek behind the scenes on Instagram. So if you're on Instagram and you wanna follow along, you can find me at clean underscore and underscore delicious. Okay, so the first thing I like to do is make the meatballs. So in a nice big bowl, I have two pounds of grass-fed beef, and to that, I'm gonna add in two eggs, one cup of cauliflower rice. Now, I just buy the cauliflower rice frozen. I let it defrost on the counter while I'm getting everything ready to go, and this acts as a nice little binder for the meatballs, plus it's an easy way to sneak in an extra veggie. Then I have a third of a cup of fresh cilantro. People either love or hate cilantro. If you don't like it, you could sub in some parsley or even some fresh mint. Then we're gonna season this with a teaspoon of sea salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, one tablespoon of garlic powder, two teaspoons of onion powder, and then a teaspoon of dried oregano. Once I have everything in the bowl, I'm just gonna mix it all together. The easiest way to do this is to use your hands. You just wanna get all of those spices and all the flavor evenly distributed and mixed throughout the meat. I really recommend when you can to look for grass-fed and finished ground beef. This is a really easy way to level up the quality of your ingredients. Not only is it delicious and better for the environment, but it's nutritionally superior to conventionally farmed meats. Now, personally, I like having meats like this delivered to the house because they're not always easy to find at the grocery store, and I was super excited because I recently connected with a local farm right here in New Jersey called the Cotton Cattle Company, and I find their quality and flavor of their meats to be exceptionally good, notably delicious, and so they're offering anybody in the C&D community 10% off anything from their website, and they do deliver anywhere on the East Coast in the United States. So if you're on the East Coast, use code CND10 and check them out. I'll link this all for you down in the description box below. If you're not on the East Coast, then I recommend ButcherBox. And again, all of the info is down in the description box below. If leveling up the quality of your meat is something that feels important to you, check them out. Okay, so this is looking good, and now we are ready to roll our meatballs. So what I like to do is just take a heaping tablespoon of the meat mixture, place it into the palm of my hands, and then you're just gonna roll it between your palms until you have a nice little ball, somewhere between one and a half and two inches, and you're gonna end up anywhere between 40 and 45 meatballs. Once I've worked through all of the meat, we're ready to make the soup. So the first thing you need is a nice big pot. I'm using a six-quart enamel-coated cast iron pot. This one is made by Lodge. I love this pot. It has become my go-to pot for all soups and chilies. Not only is it beautiful and it does a great job, but it's a third of the price of other pots that are similar to it on the market. So if you're interested, I will link it down in the description box below. All right, let's get this heating over a medium heat. I'm gonna add a tablespoon of olive oil. Once that olive oil has heated through, I'm gonna add one chopped onion, along with a pinch of salt to help pull some of that moisture out. Let that go for about five minutes or so. You're gonna see that the onions will soften and they're gonna begin to look translucent just like this. Then you are ready to add in four cloves of chopped garlic. And then I have one heaping cup of diced tomatoes. Now, I used little grape tomatoes for this. I just chopped them up, but you could really use any tomato that looks good at the grocery store. And if you don't have something fresh, you could sub some canned tomatoes. Okay, I'm gonna give that a little bit more salt, a little bit of black pepper, seasoning as we go. And then I'm just gonna let this cook for about five minutes or so. Once the garlic and the tomatoes have softened a bit, I'm gonna add in eight cups of broth. Now, I'm using a beef bone broth. Bone broth is gonna have a little more collagen, a little more protein. So it's a little bit richer, it has a little bit more body. If you don't have bone broth, then you could just use a regular beef broth. From here, I'm going to turn up the heat. We're gonna let everything come up to a boil. And then once you have that boil, reduce it back down to a simmer. And then once you have a nice gentle simmer, I'm going to gently add in the meatballs, okay? So I like to just drop them in one by one. I like to do it with my hands. You could do it with a spoon, whatever feels more comfortable for you. Then once all the meatballs are in the pot simmering away, I'm gonna prep the rest of the vegetables because as promised, this is a veggie-packed soup. Okay, so I have four carrots. These carrots are unusually large, but we're just gonna go with it, okay? So I'm going to peel them, cut off the ends, and then slice them into rounds. Carrots are really sweet and earthy, plus they're gonna add a really fun pop of color to the soup. Okay, then next up, we need to chop some cabbage. I have a really large head of cabbage here, so I'm gonna use about half of it. If you had a small head, you could use the whole thing. You wanna end up with anywhere between eight to 10 cups. What I like to do is cut the cabbage in half lengthwise. Then you wanna take this core out. So the core is right in the center here. It's kinda tough. Just take your knife on a diagonal on each side of the core and you're gonna see that it pops right out. Then lay the cabbage flat side down and cut it into hearty chunks. I just love adding cabbage to soup because it's so tender and buttery. It's definitely a personal favorite. And then the last veggie we're gonna prep is some zucchini. So I have two medium to large-sized zucchini. I like to trim off the ends. Then I slice it in half lengthwise. Then I come across, slice it horizontally. Lay it flat side down. Another slice lengthwise. Then come over the top and cut it into bite-sized pieces. You're basically gonna have like little quarter moons. Okay, now that my meatballs have been simmering away, I'm going to gently add the cabbage, zucchini, and carrots into the pot along with a little bit more salt and a little bit more black pepper. The pot is going to be full, but it should fit just all snug in a bug. So you just want to gently stir this, get it all incorporated, and then we're just gonna let that simmer away for another 30 minutes. And you're gonna see that this is about the time when your whole entire house starts to smell like a big, fat, warm, cozy hug. And everybody's gonna start asking you, what time is dinner ready? You're gonna know that the soup is ready because everything is going to be nice and tender. The veggies are gonna have a nice little bite to them, but they're gonna be cooked through. And this soup is just about ready to be served. I really like to finish it off with a little bit more cilantro. It just adds a little bit more fresh flavor right before it hits the table, and a big squish of fresh lime juice. You can just add it right to the top of the pot. Truly, this is one of our new family favorites. The meatballs are so flavorful and tender, and the veggies just add an extra layer of flavor and texture. I'm telling you, this is truly comfort food for the soul, and you're gonna find yourself coming back to make this soup all winter long. And as always, I'm very excited for you to try it. And when you do, let me know. Tag me, Instagram, Facebook. I love to see what you all are whipping up in your very own kitchens. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Dani Spees, and I'll see you back here next time with some more Clean and Deliciousness. Cheers! I'm trying to not be so loud and obnoxious up front. I feel like sometimes it's like you hit play, and I'm like, hi guys! You don't have to do that, obviously. All right, ready? Ahem.