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Italian Wedding Soup may or may not be “wedding soup” in the sense that it’s served at a wedding. In a loss of proper translation it’s a marriage of meat and vegetables.

It hails mainly from my maternal great grandmother’s area of Naples where food was never wasted, always tasted delicious and fell into that soulful memory making category, peasant food. This is my jam. These are my people.  No wonder this resonates with me so much.

Prosciutto Meatballs

There were most likely version with different types of meat and sometimes scarce meat, but always always vegetables. There were times different types of meat would be thrown in, especially varieties of pork, which is why I made my meatballs with prosciutto.

Prosciutto meatballs have popped up here before.  Here with savory blueberry sauce  and here with homemade paparadelle.

I chose to only use spinach but there are days I want escarole or lacinato kale. Just make it green.

There are days the broth is homemade using my chicken bone broth, and there are days I use an organic chicken stock.

Prosciutto Meatballs or Meatballs of Choice

I have a few different meat ball recipes that you can choose from, aside from the proscuitto meatballs I’m presenting here.

Paleo Meatballs, turkey meatballs, chicken meatballs, traditional Italian meatballs are all options. Just make them small enough to use each for soup.

Easy Italian Wedding Soup Recipe

When I need really easy, I use the store bought organic chicken stock, and baby spinach which needs no trimming. I can’t eat store bought meatballs, and they are too easy to make. Once the meat is mixed, the small meatballs only take ten minutes in the oven. You can make extra meatballs and keep them frozen.

I used riced cauliflower, which means I only need to empty a bag of cauliflower into  into the broth, but on the days I use pastina, I will boil that separately, because it will absorb a lot of broth.

As far as packing in more vegetables, you can add carrots and celery, but I don’t typically do that. I do, however, use a really good parmesan cheese, freshly ground. I also like to add a little crushed red pepper.

You can Make a Keto Version of Italian Wedding Soup Recipe

I used the cauliflower rice for a lower carb version today. Just make sure the meatballs you choose to use don’t have grains. I boost the fat by drizzling a olive oil into the soup. Consider using a little garlic infused olive oil or chili infused olive oil, which will add a little more flavor and zest.

Enjoy one of my favorite and easiest big fat healthy Italian soups!

More Soups from Spinach Tiger

More Italian Recipes from Spinach Tiger

More Keto, Low Carb, Recipe from Spinach Tiger

More Meatball Recipes from Spinach Tiger

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Big Fat Healthy Italian Wedding Soup Recipe with Proscuitto Meatballs

Italian Wedding Soup with Easy Ingredients and Low Carb Option

Course Soup

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 6

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• Prosciutto Meatballs recipe below
• 2 cups organic chicken broth
• 3 cups riced cauliflower frozen okay
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 cups fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese for garnish
• Meatball Recipe
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup pecorino romano freshly grated
• 3 slices prosciutto optional
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

• Make meatballs, by combining all ingredients together, keeping the meat loose. Form into small balls and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.
• Heat broth with riced cauliflower. If using pasta, cook pasta separately according to instructions and spoon in, about 1/4 cup cooked per soup bowl (or desired amount).
• Add in meatballs. Taste for seasoning.
• Add salt, pepper as needed.
• Add spinach at very last second. You can even wait to add spinach as you serve.
• Serve soup with parmesan cheese.

The post Italian Wedding Soup (Keto, Paleo Friendly) appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Grilled cheese is the simplest thing to make, or is it? Even though I have my cooking chops, I must admit that I had to learn through trial and error how to cook grilled cheese to get golden brown and melty cheese. All too often, the bread is burning and the cheese is not melted in the middle.

How to Cook Grilled Cheese, Tips and Fun Flavors

I have two simple secrets to teach you how to cook grilled cheese, but I’m all ears (or eyes) if you write me your secrets.

1. Use mayonnaise instead of butter, unless you have a weird thing about mayo. I can eat it with a spoon, but I know some of you don’t feel the same.
2. Use low heat. This is the hardest thing to do, because I love to turn my gas stove up to high, when the only time you should do that is when you need to boil water.
3. Use the right bread. I prefer tuscan or sour dough. I like how their crusts crisp up.
4. I use a heavy weight on the top, so I don’t put the mayo on the second piece of bread until it’s ready to be turned over.
5. Use a good melty cheese, like gruyere or fontina.
6. Add fig jam or fruity preserves, such as blackberry or peach. You can’t believe how good it tastes.
7. Add something salty to mild cheese, like Spanish olives or pickles.

Use interesting cheeses. I love the way fontina cheese melts. It’s not the most flavorful cheese, so if you’re doing naked cheese sandwich, you might want to try gruyere which is a little sharper and melts well.

I like to add fruit preserves, either spicy or savory to grilled cheese and sometimes I squeeze in proscuitto. Sometime I use Italian bread, tomatoes and mozzarella or pesto and mozzarella.

In this recipe I used preserves and chicken tenders with fontina.

The recipe I’m highlighting here has proscuitto, fontina cheese, sauteéd shallots and blackberry preserves, but you can skip those ingredients, or add in your own favorites.

I have a few amazing tomato soups if you want to go that route.

Tomato Bisque

Let me know how you make your grilled cheese and find all the food I cook and find in my travels in Instagram.

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How to Cook Grilled Cheese with Fun Flavors

How to Cook Grilled Cheese to a perfect golden brown and adding fun flavors, such as blackberry jam or proscuitto.

Course Sandwich

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 6 minutes minutes

Total Time 16 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon shallots finely chopped (can use red onion)
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 2 slices sour dough bread
• 4 slices fontina cheese
• 2 slices proscuitto
• 1 tablespoon blackberry jam

Instructions

• Sauté shallots (or red onion) in butter until almost golden. Set aside.
• Spread mayo on one side of bread.
• Place on cast iron pan or non-stick pan on low heat.
• Add blackberries, proscuitto, cheese.
• Top with piece of bread, but don't put mayo on yet.
• Cover with small piece of parchment paper and place heavy object on top.
• Cook for 4-5 minutes on low. Check at 3 minutes to gage how much longer.
• You want golden brown and melted cheese. Once golden, put mayo on top piece of bread and turn over. Cook for about a minute or until underneath is golden brown.

More Grilled Cheese Ideas

Grilled Cheese with Peach Habanero Jelly

The post How to Cook Grilled Cheese with Fun Flavors appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Retro Rose believes that the time you invite people should be the exact time you eat. If you happen to be coming to my house on Thanksgiving, it’s a different story. We argue over this every week, when she walks in the door on Sunday at 6:00 and dinner isn’t on the table. It must be something of her generation (she’s 78). I like a warming up period with guests, starting with a cocktail or glass of wine, and a nibble to get things started. One hour takes care of late comers and is still enough time to get some extra help, and as long as there is a bite of food, everyone seems willing.

Thanksgiving is a tough one, because it’s a feast, and an amuse-bouche, just a bite of food to amuse the mouth, seems appropriate. I know this might be considered very non-Thanksgiving of me to serve prosciutto, so I gave the pears a bit of a Thanksgiving pear spin, adding in cinnamon, nutmeg and browned sage butter.

I saw Prosciutto pear cups here on the blog, Cookaholic Wife. The Secret Recipe Club is an on-line blogging event in which we are assigned another food blog. The Cookaholic Wife is written by Nicole, who has a similar philosophy about cooking as I do if you read my tag line. She transformed her husband from a fast food bachelor to a happily married man eating home-cooked meals six nights a week. She has lots of slow cooker recipes that look wonderful, but this little nibble of prosciutto and pear stole my heart. This is not the first time I chose prosciutto for the SRC. Earlier this year I made, prosciutto wrapped broccolini.

I’m sort of cheating by doing two challenges in one post, but I did give the cups a creative spin by cooking the pears first, something that can be done the night before. You can take the easy way out and use raw pears, which is still a very nice bite. This should certainly amuse the mouth of hungry guests with that combination of sweet and salty and will pair nicely with a e this Butternut Squash Vodka Cocktail.

This is a super easy recipe, one in which the parts can be made hours in advance. Tell me, when you are a guest at a dinner party when do you expect to eat? Right away or within an hour or so?

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Prosciutto Fruit Cups, a Thanksgiving Amuse Bouche

An amuse bouche before dinner. Proscuitto cups filled with spicy pears.

Course Appetizer

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 12 thin slices of prosciutto cut in half
• 1 large pears cubed
• 1 tablespoon ginger
• 6 sage leaves
• 2 tablespoons butter

Instructions

• Place each half slice procuitto into mini muffin pans.
• Bake at 400 for approximately 10 minutes.
• In the meantime, melt butter in saute pan. Add sage leaves. Toss cubed pears with ginger and quickly saute in the pan for about 3-4 minutes. The pears will still have a bit of a crunch but all the flavor from the ginger and sage.
• When proscuitto cups are done, place on serving platter. Fill each cup with cubed pears.
• Makes 24. Serving is 2 each

The Creative Cooking Group will post a round-up November 22 at Foodalogue, hosted by Joan

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The post Prosciutto Fruit Cups, a Thanksgiving Amuse Bouche appeared first on Spinach Tiger.

Chocolate and hazelnut naturally go together. But, adding in crispy prosciutto takes it up several notches. Seriously, you have the chocolate, the crunchy, the nutty, and the salty all baked together and topped with hazelnut cream. What could be better?

Bookmark this and serve it to holiday guests. They will talk about it for a long time.

This is very moist just the way a bread pudding ought to be and very easy to make. The whipped cream turns this into a special dessert. I like the idea of individual sized cups as this makes it easy to feed a crowd.

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Chocolate Hazelnut Bread Pudding Cupcakes with Crispy Prosciutto

Author Angela Roberts

Ingredients

• 4 cups of nature’s pride country white bread cubes set out overnight
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 6 ounces nutella
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract the better quality, the better flavor
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/3 chopped toasted hazelnuts reserving enough to garnish
• 4 slices crispy prosciutto see below crumbled for topping and for recipe. If you are only using for topping, use less.

Hazelnut Cream for Topping

• 1 teaspoon hazelnut syrup
• 1 cup heavy cream

Instructions

• Set bread cubes aside in mixing bowl.
• Toast hazelnuts for 5 minutes at 375.
• Crisp prosciutto for 10 minutes at 375.
• Continually whisking, heat heavy cream, milk, and cocoa on stove to boiling.
• Turn off heat, add nutella, whisk until fully incorporated.
• Beat egg yolk with sugar.
• Whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture, slowly.
• Add in half of the chopped nuts.
• Option: You can also add in crispy prosciutto (very fine pieces). Prosciutto can be of a different size, so you can be judge on how much to make.
• Wrap in plastic for one hour.
• Spoon into baking cups. Bake at 350 for 21 to 25 minutes.
• Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts and crumbled crispy prosciutto.
• Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

The post Chocolate Hazelnut Bread Pudding with Crispy Prosciutto appeared first on Spinach Tiger.