It’s a meatball soup, but meat can be replaced with ground chicken or turkey or veal, based on what you like or what you happen to have in your fridge. Dumplings will work too. Adding some vegetables will make it very flavorful, colorful and fragrant. You can make it heartier by rolling more meatballs or spicier with several drops of sriracha directly into the pan.
The ingredients and their amounts are so flexible, you can even change them as you go – if it seems a little watery – add some rice or orzo. Or just pour more water if it starts to remind you of a stew.
Ingredients:
- Ground meat (turkey) – about a cup for 5-6 cups pan.
- Carrots – 2 medium
- Parsnip – half of a root
- Celery – 1 stick
- Sweet pepper – 2 small
- Lentil – 2 tbsp
- Rice – 1 tbsp
- Tomato sauce or paste – 1 tbsp
- Frozen peas – 2 tbsp
Directions:
- Pour ~5 cups of water into a pan, bring to a boil
- Add 1 tsp of salt
- Make small balls from the ground meat (about half inch in diameter) and put them into a boiling water.
- If you use lentils – add them at the same time with the meatballs, they cook a little longer than vegetables.
- When meatballs come to the surface of the pan reduce the heat to medium/low
- Add finely chopped vegetables, let them boil for about 5 min
- Add rice or orzo (all optional)
- Check for salt, adjust as needed, add freshly ground black pepper.
- Optional – add some tomato sauce or paste (even in the form of ketchup), about a tbsp, or even sriracha sauce if you want to add some heat
- When vegetables and everything else is cooked – add some frozen peas for a nice crunch
- That’s it – the soup is ready in 15-20 minutes!
