Primal Italian Wedding Soup

Growing up this soup was a tradition in my family. Although it wasn't primal since it was usually served with orzo pasta and included the high sugar and carb veggies of parsnips and carrots.

I made this the other day, primal style, and it was outstanding!

For those that do not know, Italian wedding soup is an Italian-American soup consisting of green vegetables and meat in a chicken broth. My family traditionally used escarole and mini meatballs.

According to Wikipedia, the term "wedding soup" is a mistranslation of the Italian language, minestra maritata ("married soup"), which is a reference to the fact that green vegetables and meats go well together.

Making it primal was a simple task using homemade chicken broth from an organic chicken, grass fed ground beef & organic cage free egg for the mini meatballs (they are the size of marbles and a tedious task to make but well worth it), organic spices (black pepper, parsley, garlic powder, sea salt), 3 eggs, escarole, celery and onion.

Here's the deal with the escarole... 1) You will never find organic escarole in any store ever. 2) You must boil it separately in a pot of water then strain it before adding it to the soup to avoid it's bitter taste. Cooked escarole should have a sweet buttery taste when you add it to the soup.

This is another reason I want a greenhouse at my place because you can order organic escarole seeds online - yet another veg to add to my list for the greenhouse.

Here's how you make it:

Put the cleaned chicken in 3 quarts of water, bring it a boil and cook for one hour and 15 mins. The chicken will practically fall apart when you take it out.

In a separate pot, saute your cut up celery and onion in olive oil. I used one large stalk of celery and a half of a medium sized onion for this amount of soup and it was perfect.

For the mini meatballs... 1 lb. of meat mixed with 1 egg, sea salt, black pepper, and garlic to taste. No need to add crushed pork rinds to the mix (to replace bread or bread crumbs) as you would normally do for a regular sized meatball. After you have it all mixed up, roll them (marble sized) in the palms of your hands then pan fry them in a little butter.

Once you have everything cooked up you add all your ingredients to the broth (except the escarole) and bring it to a boil then back down to a simmer for another 20 minutes. At the very end you lightly scramble 3 eggs and drop it in the soup while stirring it. Once the eggs have cooked (about one minute) you then add the escarole, stir and taste to make sure your seasonings are one the money.

Let it cool a bit and enjoy!

It is an excellent (and ridiculously healthy) soup which tastes even better the next day after all the flavors come together.

Oh... and the left over chicken breast is great to use for chicken salad and the wings, legs and thighs I spice then heat under the broiler to crisp the skin for yet another meal.

Buon appetito!