Italian

A hearty meal with a healthy dose of veggies, this Italian Potato-Sausage Soup is one of the first recipes I ever made. I remember the first time I tried it, I confused a clove of garlic with a head of garlic, so I used 2 whole heads of garlic by mistake! The result, while rather pungent, actually wasn’t half bad 🙂 I learned my lesson for next time and it’s been a favourite dish for over twenty years now! The sausages give the broth a wonderful spicy flavour complimented by the fresh red peppers. Topped with shaved Parmesan cheese and some chives, it comes together quickly for a delicious lunch or dinner.

The original recipe came from a book I had picked up, 30-minute Meals from the Academy. An oldie but a goodie, this book has lots of simple recipes that are easy to pull together and taste great. The book put an emphasis on the mise-en-place method of prepping and cutting all of your ingredients before beginning to cook anything. This was an important lesson to learn when I first starting out—I still remember frantically trying to keep up with prepping ingredients while cooking because I hadn’t thought through how long the prep work would take (and being a newbie in the kitchen, I wasn’t exactly sous chef material!) True to the book, I still prep and chop everything for this recipe before getting started on the stove.

It’s worth noting that the quality of sausages you buy will greatly affect the final dish. Rather than the basic grocery store sausages that can be very fatty and overly salted, I go to a good quality butcher offering house made, smaller-batch sausages instead. I find they tend to be much leaner and the spices and overall flavour is so much better. They freeze well, so you can always buy enough for several recipes to avoid too many special trips to the meat shop. I adapted the recipe to include the extra step of removing the sausage casings. It only takes a couple of extra minutes and makes the sausage pieces more meatball like. I also found that while the larger piece sizes recommended for the veggies look quite gourmet, they are hard to manage and not very user-friendly while eating. Instead I go with bite-size pieces that fit easily into a spoon—no extra cutting/wrangling required while eating!

The sausages start off steaming in a small amount of water, then the water is drained and they are browned on all sides. Once brown, the sausages are removed from the pot and set aside. Olive oil is added, and the veggies are sautéed. I start with the onion, followed by garlic, seasoning and potatoes. I add the red peppers near the end as I like them to remain just a tiny bit crisp. Once the veggies are just slightly golden in places, it’s time to add the broth and tomato paste. The reserved sausages go back in, too.

At this point you just need to cook everything for about 15 minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft and cooked through. Do a taste check for salt and pepper, adding more if needed. A nice crusty baguette with butter on the side round this out for a tasty dinner or hearty lunch.

To serve, ladle into bowls and top with shaved parmesan pieces and some chives or green onions. Twenty years later, I still make this regularly and it’s a real crowd pleaser. This recipe is a keeper and I hope to make it for another twenty years.

Hearty and delicious, a tomato broth with lot of fresh vegetables and sausage

5 from 1 vote

Italian Potato Sausage Soup

A hearty soup loaded with bright red peppers, garlic, potatoes and sausage that is quick and easy to make.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 5 people

Ingredients

3 Italian Sausages
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, quartered and sliced
550 g baby potatoes, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp Italian Seasoning
2 red peppers, cut into bite-sized pieces
156 ml tomato paste (5.5 oz)
900 ml chicken broth (30 oz or 4 cups)
salt to taste
freshly ground pepper to taste
handful of chives, diced
Parmesan cheese, shaved

Instructions

Trim, chop and prep all ingredients. Remove casings from sausages and cut into 1" pieces, forming little sausage meatballs.
In a large covered pot over medium-high heat, simmer sausages in 1/4 cup water for four minutes. Drain water, increase heat, and brown sausages on all sides (for about five minutes). Remove sausages and set aside.
Heat olive oil in pot. Add onions and sauté for four minutes. Add garlic, potatoes, Italian seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for another five minutes. Add red peppers and cook for two minutes.
Add tomato paste, broth and reserved sausages. Bring to a boil and simmer for fifteen minutes, until potatoes are softened and cooked through. Test for seasoning and add more salt if needed.
To serve, ladle into bowls and top with shaved Parmesan, freshly ground pepper and diced chives.

It’s a cold, dark November evening, you’ve come home after a long day at work, and your hunger is quickly turning you hangry. With some simple advance meal prep techniques, you could be coming home to spaghetti noodles, deep red tomato sauce and juicy, homemade meatballs less than 30 minutes from the time you walked in the door. Read on to find out how and get the full recipe.

Meatballs offer a great intro to the world of advance meal prep. Spend about an hour in the kitchen one weekend afternoon, and you can make enough meatballs to keep your freezer stocked for six weeks or more. Making your own meatballs means you know exactly what went into them—allowing you to avoid unwanted sugar, salt, and fat that are most often found in store-bought varieties. These meatballs also provide an easy way add turkey into your regular meal rotation as an alternate to beef, chicken and pork.

This meatball recipe originated from Martha Stewart, here. In the Martha recipe, spaghetti squash replaces the pasta which can be a nice healthy option to add more vegetables, but roasting the squash does require closer to an hour. I also find it’s hard to avoid a liquid watery-ness on the plate with the squash noodles, so for my version, I’ve stuck with regular spaghetti pasta instead.

Breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley and Parmesan cheese are blended with the ground turkey to build texture and enhance the flavour. Egg and milk help the mixture hold together. While the Martha recipe advises to mix the liquid ingredients into the breadcrumb mix before adding to the turkey, I find it important to mix all the dry ingredients into the turkey before adding the eggs and milk, otherwise it can make the breadcrumbs soggy and the whole texture of the cooked meatballs goes from meaty and firm to mushy and blah. I like to season the mix with coarse salt and A LOT of freshly ground pepper, too.

Once you’ve combined everything together into a consistent mixture, you’re ready to go into meal-prep assembly line mode! Figure out how many meatballs you want to cook up at a time. I go with seven meatballs per pack—which for us works out to enough for two dinners and leftovers for one lunch. Depending on the size of your family and how much you want for leftovers the next day, select the right number for you (or if you need a lot more than will fit onto a piece of plastic wrap, plan to grab two packs per meal and space them out accordingly). Next, spread out sheets of plastic wrap directly onto your counter. I usually put out 7–8 sheets, with each sheet approximately 16 – 18″ long. Now, start shaping your meatballs. Each one should be a ball about 1.5″ in width. Place each meatball directly onto a prepared sheet of plastic wrap, in a line, with a space of about 3/4″ between each ball.

Once you’ve shaped all your meatballs, it’s time to wrap them up. Grab the long end of the plastic wrap and fold it over the meatballs, pressing down to stick it onto the other side the sheet so that the meatballs are covered. Starting at one end, gently hold a meatball with the plastic around it and push it towards the nearest meatball, allowing the excess plastic to bunch up between them so the actual meatballs don’t touch and are separated by plastic. Continue bunching and pressing the meatballs together until they are bunched closely together and form a log. Grab a second piece of plastic wrap and use it to wrap the bundle together, folding the ends in first and then rolling for a firm, secure plastic wrap sleeve.

Once all your logs/sleeves of meatballs are ready, you can pop them into the freezer. Pause to admire your handiwork—each bundle represents a evening where you can come home to a nice, easy meal that’s homemade and good for you, too 🙂

To cook up a batch, grab a jar of your favourite spaghetti sauce and heat it to a gentle simmer. Grab a sleeve of meatballs from the freezer and throw into the microwave to defrost on very low power for about 30 seconds, just enough so that you can pull them apart. Unwrap them and drop the frozen meatballs straight into the bubbling sauce. Cover and simmer on medium-low for 25 – 30 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through. (Stir the meatballs a few times while cooking and watch that the sauce bubbles don’t get too explosive, as tomato sauce likes to blow the lid!) Most recipes tell you to brown the meatballs before cooking in the sauce, but I honestly prefer the way they cook without that step. I find the meatballs are more tender and I love how the Parmesan starts to ooze into the tomato sauce as they simmer.

While the meatballs are cooking, boil up a large pot of salted water for the spaghetti noodles. At the 20 minute mark from when you dropped the meatballs into the sauce, add pasta to your boiling water and cook for 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain the noodles, plate, and top with meatballs and sauce. Top with a little (or a lot!) of additional grated Parmesan and a good dose of freshly ground pepper. Homemade comfort, yours in 30 minutes—enjoy!

5 from 1 vote

Meal-prep Parmesan Turkey Meatballs

Whip up a batch of these savoury, healthy meatballs on the weekend and enjoy comforting homemade dinners for weeks to come!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 1 hour

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Servings 45 meatballs

Ingredients

950 g ground turkey (approx 2 lb)
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
lots freshly ground pepper
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
3 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Instructions

Lay out plastic wrap sheets onto a table or counter, approximately 7 sheets, each about 18" long.
In a large bowl, add the ground turkey. Add salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, parsley and garlic; combine with a fork until loosely combined. Add milk and eggs and lightly incorporate with a fork. Using your hands, mix until it is fully combined and comes together into even consistency.
Shape into 1.5" balls, placing onto the prepared plastic sheet. Decide how many meatballs you want to cook up at one time and place that number of meatballs onto each sheet, spacing about 3/4" apart.
Gathering plastic between each meatball, scrunch them together so there is no more empty space between them, shaping into a log. Wrap another sheet of plastic around each packet to form a sleeve to be placed into the freezer. Continue until all the meatballs are completed, and place everything into the freezer.
When you are ready to cook some, remove a sleeve from the freezer and defrost slightly in the microwave if needed to be able to pull them apart (but they should still be frozen solid). Add a jar of spaghetti sauce to a pot and bring to a gentle simmer. Drop the frozen meatballs into the sauce and cook over medium low heat for 25 – 30 minutes, until cooked through. (Stirring a few times while they cook)
Meanwhile, boil a large pot of salted water over high heat. When the meatballs have 10 minutes left to cook, add the spaghetti noodles and cook 10 minutes, until al dente. Drain pasta, plate and top with meatballs and sauce. Top with additional freshly ground pepper and Parmesan if desired.