Spring Minestrone with Chicken Meatballs

A nice, light meal in a bowl.

The recipe invites you to use whatever vegetables you have on hand, so in addition to the leeks, garlic, carrots and spinach, I added chopped onion to the vegetable sauté at the start. But the meatballs are really the star of the soup; even made with extra lean ground chicken, they were still moist and flavourful. They’d be delicious in a pasta sauce.

My family’s not always able to eat together because of different schedules, so I made the soup without spinach, and refrigerated it, making sure the spinach, parmesan garnish and extra stock (the pasta continues to absorb the liquid) was handy. The soup remained fresh tasting even upon reheating.