One Pot Italian Wedding Orzo
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One Pot Italian Wedding Orzo is everything you love about wedding soup, without the broth! Full of flavor, high protein and easy to make.
Italian Wedding Soup is one of our favorite soups and we make it on repeat during colder months. Since we have been on a big one pot orzo kick, I had the idea to make an Italian wedding orzo and skip the soup.
Filled with flavorful carrots, celery, onions, garlic and parmesan cheese with tons of mini meatballs, it’s a delicious combination of ingredients that your whole family will love!
Tyler’s Tips for Italian Wedding Orzo
- Make a bulk batch of mini meatballs to freeze and eat at your leisure! These meatballs freeze really well and there is nothing better than a quick weeknight meal out of the freezer.
- Constantly stir the orzo while it’s cooking to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can always add more liquid if it feels a little dry; the orzo will absorb it as it cooks.
- Double up on the spinach and for some extra vegetables in this recipe, the cheese and flavor from the meatballs and vegetables mask the spinach flavor.
Ingredients:
This is our favorite nonstick pan for one pot meals. It cooks perfectly and is so easy to clean!
substitutions
Olive Oil: You could use avocado oil, but we really recommend extra virgin olive oil.
Ground Beef: We like 85/15 ground beef. Feel free to use leaner ground beef depending on what you like. I haven’t tried making this with ground turkey, ground pork, or ground chicken but I think it would work just fine!
Meatballs: We always make our meatballs from scratch, but some people have recommended Earth’s Best mini meatballs to save time.
Bread crumbs: You can swap the whole wheat breadcrumbs for regular unseasoned breadcrumbs or panko breadcrumbs. We haven’t tried gluten free breadcrumbs, but I think they would work.
Parmesan Cheese: The parmesan cheese is ideal for this recipe and really makes this taste like italian wedding soup without the soup. You could try substituting with asiago cheese, provolone, or mozzarella. I don’t think dairy free cheese would work well for this recipe.
Milk: Most other milk substitutes will work fine for this recipe. We’d recommend using unflavored almond milk or oat milk to make this dairy-free.
Dried Herbs: You can easily swap the dried herbs for fresh herbs. I would double the amount of fresh herbs.
Broth: Any broth or stock (broth and stock are the same) can be used in this recipe. Beef Broth, Chicken Broth, or vegetable broth all work interchangeably. I always use low or no salt broth.
Vegetables: The carrots, onions, celery, garlic, and spinach really bring the flavor of soup to a one-pot orzo dish, but you could use onion or garlic powder if needed. Leeks or shallots can be a good alternative to onions and garlic if needed. Fresh or frozen spinach works well.
Pasta: The dried orzo has great texture and cooks quickly, but if needed, you can substitute with other small pasta like ditalini or baby shells. White rice or brown rice could be great options too if you wanted to make this gluten-free, but we haven’t tested it, so I’m not sure how it would work.
How to Make Italian Wedding Orzo
- Combine meatball ingredients and roll into meatballs (1 teaspoon each). Cook in oil in a large pan until browned on all sides. Once all are cooked, set aside.
- Reduce the heat and cook the carrots, celery, onion and garlic for 4 minutes until they begin to soften.
- Add the frozen spinach, orzo, and spices to the pan. Sauté for 1 minute so the orzo can gently toast.
- Add the stock and cooked meatballs back to the pan. Reduce the heat, stir, cover, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Once the orzo is tender, remove from the heat and stir in the parmesan cheese.
What to Serve with this Recipe:
This One Pot Meatball Orzo is a meal packed with protein and vegetables, but if you are looking to add some other options to the meal, like soup or salad, you could try: Pasta Fagioli, Lemon Chicken Soup, Spinach Strawberry Salad, or our favorite Blueberry Spinach Salad.
Feel free to double the vegetables in this recipe if you’d like.
storage
Storing: Leftovers from this one pot Italian wedding soup orzo can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Freezing: We don’t recommend freezing this recipe but you could make a large batch of mini meatballs and store these in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Reheating: This can easily be reheated in the microwave, on the stovetop, or in the oven.
other healthy One Pot Orzo Recipes:
One Pot Italian Wedding Orzo
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 egg
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- ½ cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Orzo
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup diced celery
- ½ cup diced yellow onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 cup frozen spinach
- 1 cup dry orzo
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups low sodium chicken stock
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, egg, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, milk, basil, parsley, pepper and salt. Mix together until all of the ingredients are combined.
- Roll the meatballs into 1 teaspoon round balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet or plate.
- In a large sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat.
- Add the meatballs to the pan and let them cook for 8 minutes until the meatballs are brown on the exterior. Make sure to gently stir occasionally to brown all sides. You may need to cook the meatballs in 2 batches depending on the size of your pan.
- Once browned, remove the meatballs from the pan and set aside on a plate while the orzo cooks.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic to the pan. Cook for 4 minutes until the vegetables begin to soften.
- Add the frozen spinach, orzo, rosemary, black pepper, red pepper and salt to the pan. Sauté for 1 minute so the orzo can gently toast in the pan.
- Add the chicken stock and cooked meatballs back to the pan. Reduce the heat to medium low. Stir together to evenly incorporate all of the ingredients. Cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes to make sure the orzo does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
- Once the orzo has cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the parmesan.
- Top with extra parmesan cheese when serving if you'd like.
Recipe is delicious! So much flavor! Easy to make. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I used frozen meatballs but otherwise followed the rest of the recipe. I’d personally use a little more seasoning (maybe some general Italian seasoning?) and some lemon juice next time but my teen daughter and I REALLY enjoyed this dish! I loved how easy it was to make too. I’ll definitely be making it again!
I’m glad you liked it! I’d think our meatballs have more flavor than store bought ones so that probably could’ve been why it tasted different!
The meatballs are so flavorful. Made my kitchen smell so good.