Nonna's Chicken Meatball Soup is a treasured family recipe! The chicken-Romano balls are like soft pillows that provide a burst of incredible flavor with each bite. Enjoy this Italian chicken soup for Easter, Thanksgiving or a special Sunday dinner!
Welcome to the most special recipe on Cooking with Mamma C! Chicken Meatball Soup was my Nonna's signature dish.
It was the highlight of our Easter dinners, and sometimes more often, if we were lucky. It definitely takes longer than Chicken Pastina Soup, but it's worth setting aside the time when you want an unforgettable meal!
In case you're thinking of typical, slightly firm chicken meatballs, I must tell you these are different. They're more like soft pillows of chicken and Italian cheeses, providing a burst of incredible flavor with each bite.
They're so delicate that they break easily. That means they're perfect for babies and toddlers to eat with pastina in the delicious soup, cooled with an ice cube.
In fact, Mom would make this Italian Chicken Meatball Soup at least once a month for my kids when they were little. Of course, we adults indulged too!
Recipe ingredients
Keep in mind, the most important ingredient is love!
Whole Chicken: If you can find an heirloom, stewing chicken or "roaster," which is an older chicken, it will make the most flavorful soup! You'll need to cook it for 4 ½ hours to make the meat soft enough for the meatballs.
If you can only find a "young chicken," shorten the cooking time by one hour, or the meat will be too soggy for the meatballs. The soup will still taste good, but the flavor won't be as rich as with a roaster chicken.
Romano Cheese: Pecorino Romano, made from sheep's milk, provides salty, sharp flavor that will make the Italian chicken meatballs taste amazing.
Bread Crumbs: Use store-bought, plain bread crumbs or make the bread crumbs yourself.
Pasta: I like to use small seashells, here, but you could make this with any small pasta. Try mini bowties, ditalini, orecchiette or orzo.
Tomatoes: You just need two. You could peel two fresh tomatoes, but I usually buy canned, peeled tomatoes and pull a couple out to use in the soup.
You can use the extra tomatoes to make Italian-style green beans or mushrooms with tomatoes. Or, cut up the rest and freeze them to use later for an Easy Pasta Sauce (Marinara).
Rosemary: Fresh rosemary sprigs bring the X-factor to this soup! Make sure they haven't started fading, or they won't bring as much flavor. You can use any leftover sprigs to make rosemary pork loin.
Peppercorns: Adding these to soup is a great way to provide heat and pepper flavor without darkening the broth. I also use them in this Italian Beef Soup! Strain them out before serving.
If you don't have peppercorns, you'll need to add ground black pepper.
How to make chicken soup
See the card at the end of this post for the full recipe, but here's an overview.
- Add the chicken to an 8-quart pot (affiliate link) and add water until the chicken is covered and the pot is â…” full. Cook on high heat, uncovered.
- Scoop out the scum (meat protein) that comes to the surface, until it's all gone.
- When the scum is gone, add the vegetables, herbs and seasonings. Cook, covered, for four hours for an heirloom, stewing or roasting chicken, or three hours for a young chicken.
- When the soup is done, remove the cooked chicken to a platter and use a fine-mesh strainer (affiliate link) to scoop out the cooked vegetables and peppercorns. You can save the carrots and tomatoes to serve in the soup, but the celery will be too stringy and can be discarded.
How to make chicken meatballs for soup
See the card at the end of this post for the full recipe, but here's an overview.
- Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and shred the meat finely with two forks. It will be easy to shred, but keep an eye out for any little bones you missed.
- Add the eggs, bread crumbs, cheese, parsley and seasonings. Gently mix with your hands, adding broth one ladle at a time as needed to moisten the mixture.
- Roll the chicken mixture into one-inch balls. They might seem small, but the meatballs will become larger when you boil them.
- Boil the mini-chicken meatballs for 5-6 minutes in two-parts soup broth to one-part water. They'll float when they're cooked.
Recipe tips
- For the best chicken soup, call your grocery store or market to order an heirloom, stewing or roasting chicken to use instead of a young chicken.
- Since the amount of shredded chicken you get will depend on the exact size of your whole chicken, it's best to make the meatball mixture, roll a couple of meatballs and boil them to taste. If needed, add more salt or cheese to the meatball mixture before making the rest.
- For the best-tasting pasta, cook it in the soup broth instead of plain water.
How to serve it
Scoop some pasta into a soup dish and add cooked carrots if desired. Add about six boiled chicken meatballs on top. Ladle the broth over it and serve with additional Pecorino or Parmesan cheese.
It's perfect for an Italian Thanksgiving, but you could serve it on a Sunday with sautéed escarole, The Best Italian Green Salad and some rosemary focaccia bread.
Frequently asked questions
There are several options to make this ahead of time.
The soup and chicken meatballs can be stored in the refrigerator for up to four days. Make the pasta the day you want to serve it though.
Or, you can make the soup and shred the chicken the first day, then make the chicken meatballs the next day.
You also can freeze the soup and cooked meatballs separately for up to three months. I don't recommend freezing the pasta, because it will become soft.
I haven't tried making this in the slow cooker and suspect there would need to be some adjustments. I will update this post after I've tested it.
More recipes like this
More Italian soups to enjoy
Enjoy!
If you make this Chicken Meatball Soup recipe, please leave a comment and a rating!
Nonna's Chicken Meatball Soup
Ingredients
Soup
- 4 pounds whole chicken (ideally an heirloom, roasting or stewing chicken instead of a young chicken; see notes.)
- water (about 14 cups - enough to cover the chicken in the pot and fill the pot about â…” full)
- 1 pound carrots (peeled & ends trimmed off)
- 4 celery stalks (rinsed to remove any dirt; wrap leftover celery in heavy-duty foil to keep well in the refrigerator)
- 1 large sweet yellow onion (peeled and sliced)
- ¼ of a small bunch of fresh parsley (curly or flat-leaf; rinsed & stems removed)
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 3-4 large basil leaves (rinsed clean; or 1 tablespoon dry basil)
- 2 tablespoons peppercorns
- 2 teaspoons salt (plus more if needed)
- 2 whole peeled tomatoes from a can (drained and broken up by hand; can use fresh, peeled tomatoes)
Meatballs (about 70 mini-meatballs)
- shredded cooked chicken from the soup (about 1 pound, 11 ounces; bones and skin removed; see notes.)
- 6 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese (¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons)
- ¼ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (plus extra for serving)
- ¼ cup plain bread crumbs
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley (wash parsley and remove stems before chopping)
- ¼ teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- â…› teaspoon garlic powder
- â…› teaspoon black pepper
- 2 eggs
- 1 ½ cups soup broth (A standard ladle is ½ cup. Start with one ladle at a time and mix until moist but not soggy. You may not need all of it.)
Pasta
- 1 ½ pounds small shells or any small pasta (Can cook less pasta as needed. Use ½ pound for four people.)
Instructions
Make the Chicken Soup
- Remove any giblets from inside the chicken cavity and discard. Place the chicken in a 8-quart stock pot on the stove and fill the pot with enough water to cover the chicken by a couple of inches. Cook on high heat, uncovered. As scum rises to the top, use a spoon to remove and discard it. Begin preparing the vegetables.
- Rinse the carrots, trim off the ends and peel the carrots. Peel an onion and slice it. Rinse the dirt off of the celery and trim off the tips. Rinse the parsley, cut off the stems and chop the leaves. Get the tomatoes ready.
- When the scum is gone (it should take 30 minutes), add the whole carrots, celery, sliced onion, parsley, rosemary, basil, peppercorns, a heaping tablespoon of salt, and tomatoes. Cook, covered, for four hours if using a roasting or stewing chicken. If using a young chicken, cook it for just three hours. Start the pot on higher heat and lower it after it comes to a boil. (Taste the soup after three hours and add more salt, if needed.)
- After the soup has cooked, transfer the chicken to a platter. Strain the soup by pouring it through a large, fine-mesh strainer set over another pot. Discard the peppercorns and set aside the vegetables. (The veggies will be mushy but delicious with some salt. Eat or refrigerate for later; you can add some carrots to the soup, but the celery might be too stringy.)
Make the Chicken Meatballs
- Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and discard them. Place the meat in a large bowl and finely shred it with two forks. Add in the remaining meatball ingredients (cheeses, bread crumbs, parsley, seasonings and eggs. Add one ladle (½ cup) of soup broth at a time and mix well with your hands. You may not need all of the broth. You want the mixture to be moist but not soggy. Taste a pinch of the mixture to see if it needs more salt, pepper, or Parmesan. You also could roll a couple of meatballs and boil them for 5-6 minutes to taste them to see if you need to add anything to your meatball mixture.
- Roll the meat mixture into 1-inch balls (they'll grow when they cook) and place them in a single layer on sheet pans. The meatballs can stay at room temperature for up to two hours before they need to be cooked in the soup or refrigerated. The uncooked meatballs can stay covered in the refrigerator to be cooked the next day (there is a raw egg mixed in, so don't wait longer.)
- Set up your stovetop with a large pot filled with the hot soup (no heat under it), a pot with enough soup to cook your pasta (no heat until later), a shallow pan with sides to cook the meatballs, and a pot filled halfway with soup (no heat under it) to hold the meatballs after they are cooked.
- In your wide, shallow pan with sides, boil two cups of soup broth and 2 cups of water. Add as many meatballs as will fit in a single layer and gently boil them (lower the heat if needed). The meatballs will rise to the top when they are cooked, which will take 5-6 minutes. Remove the cooked meatballs with a slotted spoon and transfer them to your pot filled halfway with broth. Continue cooking the meatballs in batches, adding more water and soup to the pan as needed. It is fine to stack the cooked meatballs in the holding pot as you go.
- When you are done cooking all of the meatballs, the pots can sit on the stove without heat for up to 1 ½ hours. When you are ready to cook your pasta, heat the pasta pot on high. Place low heat under the pots containing the meatballs and the soup. Add the pasta to the boiling soup and cook until al dente. Do not drain.
- To serve: Fill each large soup dish with some pasta, six meatballs, and broth ladled on top. Provide extra Parmesan at the table.
- The soup, pasta, and meatballs can be stored separately in the refrigerator for up to four days. (Make sure to store the pasta without any broth.) The soup and cooked meatballs can be frozen separately for up to three months.
Notes
Nutrition
(Recipe Source: My Nonna's recipe was passed on to me by my mom. Originally published on September 21, 2014 and updated now with new photos, additional information and a scaled-down recipe.)
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