This AMAZING Slow Cooker Vegetable and Meatball Soup comes together in a snap and is a healthy and hearty meal!
There’s nothing quite as cozy and comforting as a hearty, flavorful bowl of soup. With this slow cooker vegetable and meatball soup we’re not talking about some thin broth with a few paltry slivers of veggies floating around. No, this is a textured, rich, ladle full of goodness. It fills you up and warms you up in all the coziest ways.
I thought you guys would love this soup for the new year. It’s made in the slow cooker using bite sized frozen meatballs, but you could totally make your own, you add that to some seasoned canned diced tomatoes, a ton of veggies, and some orzo, and you have a seriously amazing soup on your hands. It’s about 377 calories a bowl (obviously it depends on what type of meatballs you throw in), and it’s totally filling! So perfect if you are trying to keep things on the lighter side after the holidays.
BEST VEGGIES TO USE IN THIS MEATBALL SOUP
One of the great things about this recipe is the fact that it is so versatile. Have someone in your family who loves zucchini? Feel free to throw some in. Not a big fan of carrots, you could leave them out.
Certainly our recipe offers a wonderful blend of complementary vegetables to go along with the flavorful meatballs, but you can tweak it to make the people in your life as happy about this meal as we are.
Here are a list of a few vegetables that work well:
- Onion
- Carrots
- Celery
- Zucchini
- Mushrooms
- Spinach
- Kale
- Garlic
- Tomatoes
- Summer Squash
- Peas
- Asparagus
Let me know in the comments some of your favorite veggies to use.
CAN I MAKE MY OWN MEATBALLS?
If you have a meatball recipe you love, by all means, you can add homemade meatballs to this delicious meatball soup. In fact, you can try our Baked Turkey Meatballs or this recipe for Grandma’s Meatballs instead. But if you’re pressed for time, the frozen pre-cooked meatballs work great too!
MORE DELICIOUS SOUPS TO TRY
Now that we have you in the mood for soup, here are a few more recipes you will want to try.
- Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup is a quick, delicious, low calorie option for a healthy, tasty dinner. It takes only 5 minutes to prep and you can enjoy it for 300 calories a bowl.
- Crockpot Potato Soup Recipe shows that once again the crockpot saves the day! Serve your family a meal they will love without slaving in the kitchen all day.
- Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup is the definition of comfort food! Rich, delicious, earthy flavors mingle together to make this the perfect filling and fabulous meal at your table.
- Steak Fajita Soup Recipe is going to be one of your favorite new comfort foods. It takes everything you love about fajitas and puts it in a soup bowl.
If you try any of these amazing soup recipes, definitely leave a comment below and let me know!
Slow Cooker Vegetable and Meatball Soup
Ingredients
- 1 medium zucchini diced
- 8 oz sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup carrots sliced 2 small handfuls of baby carrots
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 15 oz diced tomatoes with basil and oregano undrained
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 T basil
- 1/2 T dried parsley
- 1 pound frozen bite sized fully cooked meatballs (see a note in the post with links to meatball recipes)
- 2 cups chopped fresh spinach
- 1 cup small noodles alphabet or orzo
- shredded parmesan optional
Instructions
- In the bottom of a slow cooker, combine the meatballs, zucchini, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, chicken stock, diced tomatoes, and spices.
- Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or high for 3 to 4 hours.
- Turn the slow cooker to high and stir in the orzo and chopped spinach and cook for another half hour.
- Serve with shredded parmesan.
boucles d'oreilles van cleef and arpels trefle Knockoff says
cartierlovejesduas I’ve always loved Christmas. It’s a magical time of year. This year as well as last year will be a bit more difficult as I lost my beloved Sister unexpectedly of Christmas Eve. In her memory I’m going to try very hard to keep the spirit of Christmas (her favorite holiday)!
boucles d’oreilles van cleef and arpels trefle Knockoff http://www.topbijoux.cn/
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Tammy says
Wondering how many this is supposed to serve? 377 calories a bowl is hard to gauge without knowing the size of the bowl being used. I made this and tried to enter in my Weight Watchers tracker, but can’t get a good point estimate without a number of servings.
Tammy, I honestly did not measure it out cupful by cupful. I would say about 1/6 of the recipe is 377 calories. I am sorry that I can’t be more precise than that.
Tammy says
Sure don’t understand why you can’t answer my serving size question, here or on Facebook. At this point, you’ve lost me as a reader, if you care.
I’m sorry, Tammy, it’s a one woman show around here developing, testing, photographing, and videoing the recipes here while also managing all of the social media channels for Wine & Glue, sending invoices, responding to emails, and at the same time taking care of three little kids. So it’s true that I don’t get back to my readers as quickly as I would like to. Additionally, my family recently moved and so I am especially slow these days at responding. That said, I certainly understand if you’d like to go elsewhere for your free recipes. I wish you the best.
Karen H. says
How would you adjust this recipe for the InstantPot? (time-wise)?
If I was going to make this in the IP (and great idea!) I would cook it on manual, high, for five minutes. And then I would manually release the pressure turning it to venting at the end of the cook time. That said, I haven’t tried it, so I can’t say for certain that that is the right time. If you give it a go I’d love for you to come back and let me know how it goes.
Judy says
Could I freeze some of the left overs? Not too sure about the spinach.
I think this would be a rough one to freeze. The spinach and the noodles wouldn’t freeze well. You could do it, but it wouldn’t be as good as fresh.
Maryann Uruchurtu says
Used insta pot! Did 5 minutes and another 5 for pasta and spinach. Also used frozen zucchini and frozen stew mix with Angus meatballs… delicious
So great to hear that this worked in the Instant Pot!