Lazy Girl's Italian Wedding Soup

A LONG time ago, I posted this recipe on Sunni's blog and I just realized I never posted it here so I could list it on my recipes tab! So here it is. The Lazy Girl's Italian Wedding Soup.

Today I am going to share with you one of my favorite end-of-the-week-and-I-just-want-to-be-sitting-in-my-sweats-under-a-blanket-watching-a-movie soups. I’m an Italian LADY (not like those Jersey Shore girls). That being the case, I have had my fair share of Italian Wedding Soups and I can assure you, this one is fabulous. The recipe is a mish-mosh of the various others I have tried with two great features:

1. No need to make meatballs.
2. You can toss all your leftover veggies from the week into the pot. No longer will half your veggies die in the bottom of your crisper, taken from this world before fulfilling their lifelong dream!

And now, without further ado…

The Lazy Girl’s Italian Wedding Soup

Ingredients:

The meat-
1 package sweet turkey sausage
3 links hot turkey sausage

If you are a fan of pork sausage, I have made this soup with that as well. Add more links of hot if you like a spicier soup and remove hot links if you can’t handle the heat!

The fresh veggies-
2 medium onions, diced
4 stalks of celery, chopped
3 big potatoes, peeled and chopped
3 zucchinis, chopped
3 yellow squash, chopped
3 cups carrots, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced (or flavor with garlic salt)

The nice thing about this soup is you can add or omit whichever vegetables you want! I load up on whatever is in season at the farmer’s market each week. Last week when I made this soup, the above were the veggies I added. I would recommend always using garlic, potato, celery and onion since the potato adds depth and the others add key flavors, but feel free to trade the others out.

The rest-

1 can of kidney beans
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 large can or 2 small cans of diced tomatoes (I like the garlic roasted flavored)
5 cups of water
chicken bouillon cubes (optional)
cheese (optional)

Directions:
1. Boil potatoes in 5 cups of water in a large pot.
2. Cut the sausage from the membranes and brown in a skillet.
3. Add onion, celery and garlic to the skillet with the sausage and cook until sausage has completely browned and onion is becoming translucent. Drain and set aside.
4. Now, we add everything to the pot! Drain the kidney beans and add to the large pot. Add the whole can of tomatoes, undrained. Add all the veggies. Add the contents of the skillet you set aside.
5. Flavor with salt and pepper.



6. Allow pot to boil for 30 minutes. A low boil is fine since rolling boils are often messy.
7. Serve with bread and your favorite cheese. I like fresh parmesan but my mom prefers mozzarella from the deli. In case you are sitting around wondering which cheese Olive Garden smothers everything with, its romano. Do what you like best.



Pretty easy, right?? The recipe is uber-versatile so if there is anything you don’t like, change it! Sometimes when I’m making this soup, I end up with extra guests, or I have WAY too many veggies and I want a little more broth. To remedy this, add an extra cup of water (bringing your total to 6), add a few chicken bouillon cubes (I usually add 4), and season with garlic salt. The flavor is still great and can feed a whole lot more people.



A special thanks to my friends Sydnee and Ira for sharing with me their recipes that eventually got warped, added to, subtracted from, and maimed entirely so I could create this lovely, yummy, drool-worthy lazy girl soup.

I hope you will all try this recipe, and if you do, please stop by and tell me how it went over and what you added to it! I love to hear about new delectable veggie combinations.