Italian Wedding Soup- Meghan Style!

This is my version of one of my top favorite soups, Italian Wedding Soup, crock pot style! My amazing husband got me a huge 7 quart crock pot for Christmas (I was operating on a tiny little one before) so I had to try it out the day after Christmas. We wanted something lighter and delicious so I came up with a version of Italian Wedding Soup that could be made in the crock pot! This recipe does differ from the original Italian wedding soup because I added tomato sauce.

Meatballs:

1 pound turkey  meat

1 egg

1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

3 teaspoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

  

Soup:

6 cups chicken stock

1 cup boneless cooked chicken breast (I just quickly boiled)

1/2 cup onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup carrot, finely chopped

1/2 cup celery, finely chopped

2 cups spinach, roughly chopped

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt
1 can of tomato sauce

1/2 cup small noodles (I used mini pinwheels)

Directions:

1. Meatballs: Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix all the meatball ingredients together and form into very small balls (see below) and place onto a nonstick cookie sheet. Bake them for about 15 minutes and stir them around after about 7 minutes until they are slightly browned but still soft.
3. Remove from oven and drain off any grease if necessary. Turkey meat won't be very oily at all, but if you choose to use a ground beef it will be more oily.
4. Soup: Place all of the ingredients, except the pasta and spinach into the crock pot with the meatballs.
5. Cook on low for 8 hours (add the pasta and spinach during the last hour of cooking time). When the soup was ready I did a quick taste test and saw that I needed a little more garlic powder and I added "natures seasoning" 
6. Top each serving with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
7. ENJOY!

Hope you love this recipe as much as I do :)

Roll into tiny balls, I can get about
90 meatballs from 1 pound of meat

Cooking away my new crock pot!