This Meatball Soup With Vegetables Recipe is a light but very tasty soup filled with a combination of shrimp and ground beef meatballs and vegetables. Its’ the ideal recipe to make on chilly fall and winter days. The soup is clear and made with a vegetable and beef stock and a handful of julienne carrots and thin slices of cabbage. This soup is inspired by the “Pancit Molo” or also known as Filipino pork dumpling soup.
What is Pancit Molo? It is a soup made with a mixture of ground pork and shrimp wrapped in a wanton wrapper, shredded chicken and seasoned with some local spices. The word “Molo” is named after a district of Iloilo, Molo, Western Visayas Region of the Philippines, where the soup originated. While the word “Pancit” means noodles, this soup is served without noodles. This is the reason why most Filipinos often mistake this soup as a noodle dish because of the word “pancit”. The noodle that is being referred to in this soup is the wanton wrapper used to to wrap the mixture of meat and that’s why they call this soup dish Pancit Molo.
Going back to my recipe, I decided to use ground beef instead of ground pork and to form the mixture of meat (shrimp and ground beef) into meatballs instead of wrapping it with the wanton wrapper so it would be easier to make. I seasoned my mixture of meat with salt, pepper, minced garlic, thin slices of green onions and Worcestershire sauce because I wanted my meatballs to shine in this recipe. I know good soup is all about the “umami” flavor of the broth.
Speaking of broth, in this recipe, I used a combination of canned vegetable and beef broth, fish sauce, a combination of two types of onions, white and green onions, and ground thyme. These are ingredients that will make every broth tastier.
In my video for this recipe, I used 3 lbs of ground beef and 1 lb of raw shrimp and I was able to make a total of 54 meatballs. However, I only used 27 meatballs while I flash froze the remaining 27 meatballs for 20 minutes or so. Then I took the frozen meatballs out of the freezer, placed them all into a freezer bag, and returned them to the freezer. In this way, I have meatballs ready when my cravings for Meatballs Soup With Vegetables recipe kicks in once again.
Try also my other soup recipes that are all delicious and easy to make, Vegetable Beef Soup: Filipino Dish and Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup With Jalapeno And An Asian Twist.
Meatball Soup With Vegetables
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1.5 lb ground beef
- 1/2 lb raw shrimp peeled and chopped
- 2 stalk green onions finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic peeled and minced
- 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
- 3/4 tsp ground pepper
- 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 large eggs
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
Broth Ingredients
- 1/2 whole white onions
- 2 stalk green onions
- 2 medium carrots peeled and julienne
- 1/4 head green cabbage thinly sliced
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 2 cups water
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 1/4 tsp ground thyme
- 1 tbsp white vinegar
Instructions
- Put all of the meatball ingredients into a big mixing bowl. Mix all of the ingredients by hand until the meat mixture becomes thick and pasty.
- Form the meatballs by taking a large spoonful of the meat mixture and roll the meat mixture into a ball using both palms. Arrange the meatballs (around 27 meatballs depending on the size) on a lightly oiled plate with space between them. Transfer the meatballs into the refrigerator,
- Place a medium sized dutch oven or soup pot over medium high heat. Then add the vegetable broth, beef broth, water, onion, carrots and green onion, season with salt, pepper and fish sauce.
- Cover and bring to a boil. Then turn down the heat to medium and continue cooking for 8 to 10 minutes.
- Stir the cabbage into the mixture. Cover and continue cooking for 5 to 6 minutes. Then uncover, remove the stalk of green onions from the mixture and stir in the ground thyme.
- Add the meatballs into the mixture carefully. Cover and bring to a boil. Continue cooking for 12 to 14 minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through.
- Stir the vinegar into mixture, turn off the heat.
- Best served with glass noodles or angel hair pasta. Enjoy!
