Creamy Mini Meatball Soup
If you have a jar of marinara sauce sitting in your cabinet, MAKE THIS SOUP! I am not even kidding when I tell you this might be one of the easiest and most delicious soups I have made in a long time.
This Creamy Mini Meatball Soup starts with a simple little base of carrots, celery, onion and garlic, but the secret is the jar of marinara. Instead of opening cans of tomatoes and trying to build a tomato broth from scratch, we’re using a really good jarred sauce and turning it into the most incredible creamy tomato broth with chicken stock, heavy cream and Pecorino Romano.
Then come the mini meatballs, radiatori pasta and spinach, and OH MY GOD. The little meatballs and pasta are almost the same size, so you get a little bit of everything in every spoonful. It’s creamy, tomatoey, cheesy, hearty and seriously freaking delicious.
And the best part? It’s all made in ONE pot!
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Melissa’s Tips and Tricks!
- Use a marinara you actually love. The sauce is doing a lot of the work here, so this isn’t the time for a sad jar of sauce that’s been hiding in the back of the cabinet for three years! I used a 24-ounce jar of Antonio Carlo Tomato Basil Sauce because it is freaking delicious, but use your favorite.
- Don’t skip shaking out the sauce jar. Pour some chicken stock into that empty jar, shake it up and dump it into the soup. We are not wasting any of that goodness!
- Use low-sodium chicken stock. Between the marinara, meatballs and Pecorino Romano, you already have plenty of flavor and salt going into the soup.
- Keep an eye on the pasta. Radiatori cooks right in the soup, so stir it occasionally and start checking it before the 10-minute mark.
- Don’t overcook the pasta. Remember, it’s sitting in hot broth even after you turn off the heat, so al dente is exactly where you want it.
- The extra cup of water matters. It gives you the perfect soup-to-pasta-to-meatball ratio once everything cooks together.
- The soup will thicken as it sits. The pasta continues soaking up some of that delicious broth, so add a splash of chicken stock when reheating if needed.
🤔 Common Questions
Radiatori is SUCH a good pasta for this soup. It’s a short, ruffled pasta shape that grabs onto that creamy tomato broth, and I especially love it here because the pieces are around the same size as those little mini meatballs.
Every spoonful gets pasta, meatball, spinach and that creamy tomato broth. SO GOOD.
If you can’t find radiatori, another small pasta shape will absolutely work. Try ditalini, small shells, elbows or mini farfalle.
YES! That’s one of the reasons I love this recipe.
I used Antonio Carlo Tomato Basil Sauce because it’s one of my favorites, but whatever good-quality marinara or tomato basil sauce you already love will work.
This is basically your excuse to grab that jar of sauce in your pantry and turn it into dinner.
Mini meatballs really are perfect here because you can scoop them up with the pasta in every bite. If you only have larger frozen meatballs, you can use them, but I would cut them into smaller pieces once they’re heated through.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3–4 days.
Just remember that pasta loves to soak up liquid! The soup will be thicker the next day, so when reheating, add a splash of chicken stock or water until it gets back to the consistency you like.
Reheat gently on the stovetop or in the microwave until warmed through.
Creamy Mini Meatball Soup
Ingredients
Method
- Add the olive oil to a Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium to medium-low heat.
- Add the diced celery, carrots and onion along with a couple shakes of crushed red pepper, a little salt and some freshly cracked black pepper.
- Sauté until the vegetables soften and become translucent and lightly golden. You aren’t looking to caramelize them here — just get them nice and tender.
- Once the vegetables are softened, add the sliced or chopped garlic.
- Stir everything together and sauté for another minute or so, just until that garlic becomes fragrant. Don’t let it burn!
- Pour in the entire jar of tomato basil marinara sauce.
- Now here’s my favorite little trick: pour some of the chicken stock right into the empty sauce jar, put the lid back on and give it a good shake. Pour that into the pot so you get EVERY last bit of that sauce out of the jar.
- Add the remaining chicken stock along with 1 cup of water and stir everything together.
- Bring the soup to a boil.
- Once the soup is boiling, add the frozen mini meatballs and radiatori pasta.
- The frozen meatballs will probably bring the temperature of the soup down, so let everything come back up to a boil.
- Cook for about 10 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente and the meatballs are heated all the way through.
- Stay by the pot and give it a stir every so often! When you’re cooking pasta directly in soup, you don’t want it settling and sticking to the bottom.
- Once the pasta is just about where you want it, lower the heat and add:
- 3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 5 oz roughly chopped fresh spinach
- Stir everything together until the cheese melts into the broth, the spinach wilts and the soup becomes creamy and beautiful.
- Let it gently simmer for just a few minutes so everything comes together.
- Then THAT’S IT!
- Ladle it into bowls and top each serving with a little extra Pecorino Romano or Parmesan.
- Absolutely un-freaking-real.
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Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3–4 days.
Just remember that pasta loves to soak up liquid! The soup will be thicker the next day, so when reheating, add a splash of chicken stock or water until it gets back to the consistency you like.
Reheat gently on the stovetop or in the microwave until warmed through.
