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Soup with meatballs in a slow cooker

Meatball Soup in a Slow Cooker

A tasty homemade soup with meatballs. The ease of making this soup, thanks to the slow cooker, frees up time for the cook. This delicious meatball soup is good for the whole family, including kids — who, by the way, name it one of their favorite soups.

Anna

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Ground meat

250

Onion

Carrots

Potatoes

Vermicelli

Dill

Salt

Vegetable oil

0.5

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 19 % 5 g

Fats 37 % 10 g

Carbohydrates 44 % 12 g

157 kcal

GI: 100 / 0 / 0

Cooking method

Cooking time: 40 min

Step 1:

How do you make meatball soup in a slow cooker? Gather the ingredients you'll need. I use medium-sized vegetables — carrot, onion, potatoes. You can swap the vermicelli for small pasta or rice if you like. My ground meat is homemade pork/chicken. If the ground meat is frozen, thaw it first. The vegetable oil is for sautéing the vegetables; you can skip that step. For fresh herbs, I use dill.
Step 2:

Pour the vegetable oil into the slow cooker bowl and turn on the "Fry" setting. Peel and prep the carrot and onion: chop the onion, and grate the carrot on a coarse grater. Sauté the vegetables in the oil until golden. Turn off the "Fry" setting.
Step 3:

Wash, peel, and dice the potatoes. Add them to the onion and carrot and stir everything together. If you decide to skip sautéing the vegetables, just put the prepped vegetables — onion, carrot, potatoes — straight into the slow cooker bowl.
Step 4:

Pour 1.5 liters of hot water over the vegetables. Close the lid and turn on the "Soup" setting for 20 minutes.
Step 5:

My ground meat already has onion in it; if yours doesn't, you can finely chop some and add it. For tenderness, you can also add an egg or breadcrumbs to the meat (this is optional). With wet hands, pinch off small pieces of the meat and roll them into meatballs. Make them whatever size you like.
Step 6:

After 20 minutes, add the meatballs to the soup and salt it. Close the slow cooker lid and keep cooking on the "Soup" setting for another 10 minutes.
Step 7:

Add the vermicelli to the soup, stir, and add more salt if needed. You can also add other favorite spices. Cook the soup for another 5 minutes.
Step 8:

After five minutes, turn off the slow cooker. Rinse the fresh dill under running water, shake off the excess, and chop it. Add the chopped dill to the soup, close the lid, and let the soup rest for a few more minutes.
Step 9:

Serve the meatball soup hot, with fresh herbs and fresh bread. This soup is also good for a kids' menu.

Important! Whether or not the recipe specifies an amount of water for the soup, it's best to go by your own preferences (whether you like a thick or thinner soup), as well as the size of your pot and the ingredients you're using. Keep in mind that the author has their own idea of how much meat, potato, grain, and other ingredients should go into the soup, which may not match yours. In practice, this means that if you're making it for the first time, you shouldn't cook a whole pot at once. Make a tasting batch for one or two people. To do that, reduce all the recipe's ingredients to 1–2 servings, and figure the water at roughly one cup per serving for a very thick soup, up to 1.5–2 cups for a thinner one. Don't forget that some of the liquid will boil off as it cooks. After tasting a small portion, you can adjust both the amount of liquid and the proportions of the ingredients to your taste. From then on, like most experienced cooks, you'll be able to add the water and the ingredients by eye.
Keep in mind that the cooking time and setting given in the recipe are approximate. All slow cookers work differently, and even identical models from the same maker can have their quirks. Before making a dish that's new to you in a slow cooker, read its manual carefully, then practice by first cooking dishes you know well and later new ones, dialing in the setting and time for your own machine.