Cheese tortellini soup with vegetables
- Preparation 25 min
- Cooking 25 min
- Servings 6 to 8
- Freezing Absolutely
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🥣 A real fridge clean-out, nothing else
There’s no travel story behind this soup. I had parsnips and carrots, some celery, a package of baby bok choy sitting in the fridge, and I built a soup out of all that. The cheese tortellini went in because I had a bag of those too. A real fridge clean-out, one pot, and nothing more glorious than that.
🥬 The broth stays clear, and that’s on purpose
Most tortellini soup recipes you’ll come across are creamy. Not this one. I wanted a soup that was clear, light and easy to make, one where you can still see the vegetables at the bottom of the bowl. No heavy cream, no roux. The broth does all the work on its own, with vegetables you let caramelize before any liquid goes in. And the bok choy: I’ve always loved the stuff, so I sautéed it with everything else and dropped it in. Honestly, it’s delicious.
🍝 Dinner in a bowl, not a starter
Six to eight servings. Most recipes out there give you four. Here you get your weeknight dinner and tomorrow’s lunches out of the same pot. There isn’t a single piece of meat in the bowl, just 2 L of chicken broth carrying the whole thing, and nobody at my table has ever complained. A meal soup that costs next to nothing and comes together while you clean up the kitchen.
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🔥 A bit of golden on one side, that’s all you want
You’re not after restaurant caramelization here. Just a bit of golden on one side of the parsnip and carrot cubes, after seven or eight minutes over medium high heat. And when you pour the broth in, scrape the bottom of the pot with your wooden spoon.
🥬 The bok choy, my thing
I’ve always loved bok choy, and you only ever see it in the same three Asian recipes. The trouble is you buy it in big packs of baby bok choy and end up with leftovers you don’t know what to do with. So I decided to sauté it with the rest of the vegetables and drop it into the soup. Honestly, it’s delicious, and I haven’t seen anyone else do it in a tortellini soup.
It comes out of the pot soft, and that’s exactly right. It behaves a lot like spinach in a soup. If you were hoping for crunch, forget it right now, that’s not what I’m going for here.
🌿 Herbes de Provence in an Italian soup
Yes, and I stand by it. I put them in everything, because they taste good. Tortellini being Italian is no reason to reach for the basil out of reflex.
🍲 The broth carries the whole bowl
Two litres of liquid is what you’re going to taste, there isn’t much else holding this soup up. If you’ve got homemade chicken stock in the freezer, even better, that’s what my recipe is there for. Otherwise store-bought broth, definitely. Taste before you salt though: some of them are already pretty salty.
🍝 250 g, or 400 if you’re really hungry
I buy good quality refrigerated cheese tortellini, never frozen, and I cook them straight in the simmering broth. If you want a real dinner instead of a bowl of soup, go up to 400 g.
❄️ The next day, and the freezer
The pasta drinks the broth overnight. You’ll open the container the next day and find something a lot thicker than what you served. Me, I eat it just like that. It’s a soup after all, not a five star Michelin restaurant. If it bothers you, a splash of broth or water while reheating and you’re fine. Two to three days in the fridge, no more.
For the freezer, the ideal is to freeze the broth and vegetables without the tortellini, then cook fresh ones when you reheat. Otherwise the little pasta pillows turn into mush. That said, when I serve it thick to my boys they eat it anyway. I’d rather do that than waste it.
✅ What to serve with my cheese tortellini soup with vegetables?
A baguette with butter, dead simple, that’s what I do. If you’ve got homemade focaccia lying around, even better for mopping up the bottom of the bowl. And for other bowls in the same family, my vegetable minestrone soup and my vegetables and barley soup play in exactly the same league.
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Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 2 large parsnips, diced
- 2 Nantes carrots, diced
- 2 stalks of celery, sliced
- 6 baby bok choy, sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) herbes de Provence
- Olive oil
- 8 cups (2 L) chicken broth
- 250 g refrigerated cheese tortellini
- 1 package (142 g) baby spinach
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
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Preparation
- In a large saucepan heated to medium high heat, put the vegetables and herbes de Provence, add a good drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook 7 to 8 minutes, stirring, to caramelize the vegetables.
- Add the chicken broth, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add tortellini and cook according to package directions, 5 to 10 minutes.
- Add the spinach and mix. Serve with a baguette!
Not here. I drop them straight into the simmering broth and let them cook for the time on the package: somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. The starch they release gives the broth a bit of body, and it’s one less pot to wash. The only downside is that they keep drinking the broth once it’s in the fridge. In my tomato soup with cheese tortellini I do the opposite, because that base is already thick and I want it to stay that way.
No. Eight recipes out of ten use it, mine never has, and that’s deliberate. I wanted a clear, light soup where you can still see the carrots and the parsnip at the bottom of the bowl. The cheese inside the tortellini already brings all the roundness you need once it softens in the broth. If you’re set on a creamy version, this isn’t the recipe for you.
Chicken broth, and you need 2 L of it. If you’ve got homemade chicken stock in the freezer, even better: my recipe makes enough for two or three soups. Otherwise store-bought does the job perfectly well. Taste before you salt, some store broths are already very salty and you’ll regret it at the end of the cooking.
There isn’t a single piece of meat in the bowl: nothing but vegetables and cheese tortellini, with a handful of spinach thrown in at the very end. The broth, though, is still a chicken broth, so this isn’t a soup for someone who avoids it entirely. If that’s you, swap in vegetable broth and you lose almost nothing: the caramelized root vegetables are what carry the flavour anyway.
A baguette and butter, that’s it. This is a meal soup for 6 to 8, there isn’t much to add around it. If you have homemade focaccia, even better for mopping up the bottom of the bowl. For other soups in the same family, look at my vegetable minestrone soup or my vegetables and barley soup. And the day you want meat in there, my beef, tortellini and green pea soup is waiting.
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