Name: Instant Pot Italian Wedding Soup
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 1 lb ground beef, pork or chicken; 1 egg; 1/3 cup breadcrumbs; 1/3 cup parmesan cheese; 1 onion, grated; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning; 1/2 tsp each salt & pepper; 2 tbsp olive oil; 1 onion, diced; 3 stalks celery, finely chopped; 2 carrots, finely chopped; 4 cloves garlic, minced; 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning; 1/2 tsp each salt & pepper; 6 cups chicken broth; 1/2 cup dried acini de pepe pasta; 1/4 cup dry white wine; 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated; 2 cups spinach, chopped

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This Instant Pot Italian Wedding Soup is a hearty soup with meatballs, parmesan cheese and rich broth made easy thanks to your pressure cooker!

Ingredients in Instant Pot Italian wedding soup

This Italian wedding soup recipe includes instructions to make your own meatballs from scratch out of ground meat, breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Add some seasonings and you have meatballs you can use in this soup as well as any other dish.

Besides the meatballs, you will need these ingredients for the Instant Pot Italian wedding soup:

Onions
Celery
Carrots
Garlic
Chicken broth
Small pasta
White wine
Parmesan cheese
Spinach

Wedding soup is a bit of a misnomer. More accurately, it’s married soup, meaning that the flavors blend well together. It’s a favorite recipe because of this amazing combination!

How to make Italian wedding soup

You can make this entire soup in your Instant Pot in about 40 minutes – including the time it takes to come to pressure!

Mix the meatball ingredients and form them into one inch meatballs.
Use the saute mode on the Instant Pot to brown the meatballs in oil.
Add the veggies, seasoning, broth and pasta to the Instant Pot. Make sure the pasta is submerged in the broth.
Cook on high pressure for five minutes.
Perform a quick release so the cooking stops quickly and the meatballs don’t fall apart or get overcooked.
Add the wine, parmesan and spinach. Allow the spinach to wilt a bit before serving.

Ingredient substitutions

You can use any kind of ground meat you prefer for the meatballs. Beef, chicken, turkey and pork will all work. This is a great meatball recipe for any meal.

Italian sausage can be used in place of the meatballs if you don’t want to prepare them.

You can add veggies like carrots or green beans to the soup. Or you can use cabbage, kale or endive instead of spinach.

Acini de pepe pasta can be hard to find in grocery stores so you can also use ditalini, macaroni or orzo.

Making the meatballs ahead of time

You can prepare the meatballs in advance to make this Instant Pot wedding soup recipe even quicker. Plus, having premade meatballs on hand is an easy way to add some protein and flavor to any dish – they’re also great for a quick snack!

When you are making the meatballs in advance, you want to cook them before storing them. You can mix the ingredients then either pan fry or bake meatballs. Cooked meat keeps longer and the meatballs will keep their shape if they are cooked.

You have two choices for storing the meatballs. You can refrigerate meatballs for three or four days. If you are making them further in advance, you can freeze them. Freeze for an hour on a baking tray then transfer to a freezer safe container. This prevents them from sticking together. Meatballs will last for three months in the freezer.

What type of pasta?

Use small pasta that is perfect for Italian wedding soup. It mixes nicely with the other ingredients and doesn’t require any cutting. It cooks in just five minutes in the Instant Pot as well. I use acini de pepe, but you could also use:

Orzo
Ditalini
Risoni
Corallini
Alphabet pasta for the little ones!

Do you really need the wine?

Wine adds a lot of depth and a richer flavor to the soup. Wine is acidic and will bring out the flavors of the other ingredients. Because we are adding it after cooking, I use dry white wine which has a more mild flavor than red wine.

If you don’t want to use wine, you can just leave it out. The flavor will remain similar, but the flavors will be a little less rich.

More Instant Pot soup recipes

Storing and reheating

You can store this Italian wedding soup in the refrigerator for five days. It will be even better the next day after the flavors blend overnight.

This means you can also use this recipe for meal prep. This recipe makes six servings. Store what is left in individual serving size containers and use it for lunch.

To reheat it, put it in the microwave for two to three minutes, stirring halfway through reheat time.

Freezing Italian wedding soup

This is a great freezer recipe since Instant Pot Italian wedding soup is so quick to make. It will last for three months frozen.

To thaw, let it sit in the refrigerator overnight and then reheat. If you froze a large portion, you can put it in a sauce pan to reheat thoroughly.

Since we are using an Instant Pot to make this Italian wedding soup, it’s easy to double the recipe. You may want to saute the meatballs in batches. You want all sides of the meatball to touch the oil so they brown evenly. When cooking a larger portion, you don’t have to increase the cooking time in the Instant Pot. It will take longer for it to come to pressure though.

Then you have an additional meal ready in the freezer.

Note: if doubling, make sure the ingredients don’t go past the fill line. It may only be possible to double this recipe if you’re using an 8-quart Instant Pot.

Meal prep tools for this recipe

Grab some glass meal prep bowls if you plan on turning this soup into your weekly lunches.
I get all my free-range ground chicken from Butcher Box, conveniently delivered to me frozen.
Get a meat thermometerto make sure your meatballs are cooked through
Use these Ziploc bag holders if you’re freezing the meatballs
Freeze individual portions of this recipe in glass microwave-safe bowls up to 3 months