Venison Italian Wedding Soup
Venison Italian Wedding Soup: tender venison meatballs floating in a light, savory broth, packed with fresh vegetables, tiny pasta, and tons of flavor. This venison soup recipe is a great way to enjoy the tail ends of soup season. It's comforting but light and fresh at the same time.
Servings: 16 cups
Calories: 161kcal
Equipment
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 1 lb ground venison (or other lean ground meat)
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup breadcrumbs
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup grated yellow onion (or 1 teaspoon onion powder)
- 2 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped (or 1 tablespoon dried parsley)
- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
Soup:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 cup yellow onion, diced
- 1 ½ cup carrots, sliced at an angle
- 2 cups fennel, sliced
- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
- salt and black pepper, to taste
- ¾ cup white wine
- 8 cups pheasant stock (or chicken, turkey, etc.)
- 1 ¼ cup acini de pepe pasta, dry
- 8 oz spinach, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- chopped parsley, optional, for garnish
- fennel fronds, optional, for garnish
- freshly grated parmesan, optional, for garnish
- lemon wedges, optional, for garnish
Instructions
Meatballs:
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
- To a medium bowl add egg, milk, bread crumbs, and olive oil. Mix together with a whisk. Let mixture sit while you prepare other ingredients (onions, garlic, parsley, etc.), about 5 minutes. The breadcrumbs will absorb the wet ingredients which helps the meatballs stick together.
- Add meat, onion, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper to the bowl. Gently mix together with your hands until well combined.
- Use a cookie scoop or measuring spoon to divide the meat into 48 equal portions, about 1 tablespoon each.
- Gently form each portion into a ball. Place meatballs on a parchment paper-lined pan, evenly spaced. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 165°F and the outsides are golden brown.
- If you'd like to brown your meatballs a little more, you can broil them on high for 3-5 minutes after the initial cooking time.
- Set aside until ready to use.
Soup:
- Heat a Dutch oven over low heat. Add butter to the pot and let it melt.
- Add diced onion, sliced carrots, sliced fennel, and minced garlic. Season with salt and black pepper. Stir to combine and cook for 7-8 minutes, or until softened.
- Add wine to the pot and bring it to a simmer. Simmer for 7-8 minutes or until the wine is reduced by half.
- Add the pheasant stock to the pot and bring it to a simmer over medium-high heat.
- Add the dry pasta to the broth. Simmer for 8 minutes, or 1-2 minutes less than the package instructions state for al dente pasta.
- Add the meatballs to the broth and simmer for 2-3 minutes, or until heated through.
- Add spinach to the pot and gently stir to combine. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until the spinach is slightly wilted.
- Remove the pot from the heat and stir in lemon juice. Taste and season with salt and pepper, if needed.
- Top bowls with parsley, fennel fronds, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and grated parmesan, if desired. Serve with crusty bread. Enjoy!
Notes
- One of the secrets to tender meatballs is to gently mix the ingredients. If you overmix the ingredients or compact the meat mixture too much, you'll end up with tough meatballs.
- Letting the breadcrumbs soak in the milk and eggs is essential to making the meatballs stick together. If the breadcrumbs don't fully soak up the liquid before adding the rest of the ingredients, the meatball mixture can be a little soupy.
- Any ground meat, whether it's wild game meat, ground beef, ground pork, etc. can be substituted for ground venison.
- A cookie scoop is a handy tool to make evenly-sized meatballs. But, you can also portion them by hand.
- Meatballs can be prepared and cooked up to 1 day in advance before preparing the soup.
- Prep the meatballs and vegetables in the morning to make cooking a breeze at dinner time!
- Traditionally, Italian wedding soup uses a light-colored broth like chicken broth or chicken stock. Pheasant stock has a rich flavor that works great for this recipe. You can use any light-colored broth or stock you have on hand. Don't use a dark-colored broth like beef stock, beef broth, venison stock, or venison broth.
- This recipe uses simple seasonings of salt and black pepper. But, you can add extra flavor with fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, etc.
- Acini de pepe translates to "seeds of pepper" in Italian. They are tiny, round pasta slightly larger than cous cous. You can use other small pasta like orzo or pastina.
- A large Dutch oven is the perfect size for this recipe. But you can use a large stockpot, heavy pot, or other large pot instead. A slow cooker is not a good option for this recipe because it cooks in only 30 minutes!
Nutrition
Calories: 161kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 11g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.03g | Cholesterol: 36mg | Sodium: 193mg | Potassium: 420mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 3461IU | Vitamin C: 9mg | Calcium: 56mg | Iron: 2mg
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