Total time: 50 min • Prep: 20 min • Cook: 30 min • Serves: 4 • Difficulty: Easy

This Italian meatball-filled soup is warming and filling, developing rich flavor as it simmers on the stovetop. Like many Italian dishes, this soup was a meal for peasants, who used whatever bits of meat they had leftover and lots of local greens. Here we’ve included escarole, a leafy green with darker, more bitter outer leaves and tender, milder inner leaves. The meatballs are mixed with breadcrumbs for moisture while the egg whites helps bind them. It’s important to shape the meat mixture into meatballs that are on the smaller side—3/4 inch—so that they cook thoroughly as they simmer in the brothy soup mixture.