Russian Chicken Meatball Soup is so light and fresh, made with aromatic vegetables, potatoes, rice and the most tender chicken meatballs. This is a soup that is a favorite with the whole family.
Russian Chicken Meatball Soup with rice, potatoes and fresh herbs is so easy to make, but is both healthy and filling. The light, "brothy" soup with the tender chicken meatballs is the perfect comforting meal any time of year. It seems every culture loves their meatballs in many ways. A great option is to serve it in soup. My mom made this Russian Meatball Soup, which we called Суп с Фрикадельками, quite often and I make it for my own family now. This soup is light and healthy, but absolutely delicious.
This is definitely a quick dinner option, since there is very little prep work and the cooking time is fairly short. The ingredients are very simple pantry staples, but marry together to create an incredibly tasty soup. I really prefer using chicken for the meatballs, with their clean flavor and such moist, plump and succulent texture. You will feel light and fresh when sipping each pleasing spoonful, not only from it's healthy goodness but also because you'll still have some energy left, instead of spending it all on the cooking.
Watch the Video of How To Make Chicken Meatball Soup
Ingredients:
- butter or oil (for sauteing)
- onion (for the soup and the meatballs)
- carrot(s)
- celery
- celery was not a popular ingredient in the Russian cuisine, so many recipes of this soup do not use celery, but I really love it.
- garlic
- potatoes
- water
- Most of the time when I make soup, I use broth but in this soup I prefer regular water. It will be make the soup really light and fresh, resulting in a delightful broth. The clean flavor of this soup is absolutely amazing because of that and I actually prefer it.
- dry bay leaves, dry herbs and spices
- rice (I use long grain white rice, you can use other rice if you want, adjust the cooking time depending on the rice that you use.)
- fresh herbs (parsley, dill, green onions)
- salt, pepper
Chicken Meatballs
- ground chicken
- Of course, you can use other ground meat, like ground beef, ground pork, ground turkey. My favorite, by far, is ground chicken. It is the secret to the best version of this soup.
- breadcrumbs (panko is m favorite, you can use any that you like)
- milk
- any dairy free milk will work in this recipe as well. Even water can be used, although in my opinion, milk is better.
- onion
- I use half of the onion in the soup and half in the meatballs. Grating it finely on a box grater will ensure that the onion will be cooked through in the meatballs, since they cook really quickly.
- salt, pepper, dry herbs and spices, garlic powder
How to make Chicken Meatball Soup
- Saute the vegetables. Heat the butter or oil and add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic. Season with salt and ground black pepper. Cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
- Pour in the water, bay leaves and potatoes. Season with salt, pepper and any herbs and spices that you like.
- Cook, at a simmer, until the potatoes are cooked through. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until everything is cooked and the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make the meatballs.
- Pour the milk over the breadcrumbs and set it aside for about 5 minutes, until bread has been absorbed by the milk and is soft.
- Add the rest of the ingredients to the meatball mixture (including the grated onion) and mix until well combined.
- Using moistened hands, form the ground meat mixture into approximately ½ - 1 Tablespoon meatballs and drop into simmering soup. (I like to use a small portion scoop to form the meatballs first.)
- Add the rice to the soup. The rice and the meatballs will take about the same amount of time, about 10 - 15 minutes, depending of the size of the meatballs.
- Garnish with the fresh herbs. Serve:).
Serving the Soup:
Our favorite way to serve the soup is with some bread, like my Simple Homemade Bread or the Crunchy No Knead Bread.
This recipe makes a big batch, so feel free to halve it. It reheats really well, so I like having this big batch to enjoy the soup the next night too and have a night off from cooking. Oftentimes, I will give soup to my boys for lunch the next day or two. It's great to have something healthy and nutritious as an easy lunch option on hand.
Russian Meatball Soup
Russian Meatball Soup with rice, potatoes, fresh herbs is so easy to make, but is both healthy and filling. The light, "brothy" soup with the tender chicken meatballs is the perfect comforting meal any time of year.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Soup
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon butter or oil
- ½ of a large onion (finely diced)
- 1-2 carrots (shredded on large holes of box grater)
- 2-4 celery stalks, finely minced
- 2-3 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 10 cups water
- 3 medium potatoes (chopped)
- salt (pepper)
- ⅓ cup long grain rice
- ½ Tablespoon dry herb mixture (optional)
- fresh chives (parsley, dill, minced, for garnishing)
Meatballs
- 1 lb ground chicken (or ground turkey, pork or beef)
- ½ cup panko breadcrumbs
- ¼ -⅓ cup milk
- ¾ - 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ of an onion (grated on the finest setting on the box grater, to form a pulp)
- ½ teaspoon dry herb mixture (optional)
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Heat the butter or oil and add the onion, carrots, celery and garlic. Season with salt and ground black pepper. Cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
- Pour in the water, and add the potatoes and bay leaves. Bring the water to a boil. Season with salt, pepper and dry herbs and spices to taste. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked through.
- Meanwhile, make the meatballs. Pour the milk over the breadcrumbs and set it aside for about 5 minutes, until bread has been absorbed by the milk and is soft. Add the rest of the ingredients to the meatball mixture and mix until well combined.
- Using moistened hands, form the ground meat mixture into approximately ½ - 1 Tablespoon meatballs and drop into simmering soup. I use a small portion scoop to form the meatballs first.
- Add the rice to the soup. Allow to cook until the rice and meatballs have completely cooked through, 10-15 minutes. Garnish with the fresh herbs.
- Serve the soup hot/warm.
Made this soup so many time and it’s always a bit hit. My mom used to make it growing up and now I make it for my children. Thanks for the recipe .I did notice that your picture and instructions mention celery but the ingredients list does not..
I'm so glad you enjoyed the soup, Lena. Thank you for taking the time to write. (sorry about the typo - I'll add the celery in.)
Thank you for the yummy recipe!!! I used 1/4 cup progresso Italian breadcrumbs. 1/4 cup buckwheat instead of rice. Tony’s creole seasoning for salt and fresh dill. The 10 cups of water came out perfect, no broth needed!
So happy to hear that you enjoyed this soup, Maria. Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Keep coming back to this delish recipe. It’s a treat and I love serving it to my family.
This is a recipe I'm definitely going to try and SOON!
Thanks very much
Just made it- so good!! The broth/veggie base is so delicious and hearty, but very light at the same time. I'd maybe omit the rice next time as I like my soups thinner, but overall, this was pretty quick and easy to make.
Olga, just made the soup today per your recipe. Delicious!!! Brought back sweet memories of watching my.mama make this soup, and of course, eating it with her at the kitchen table. Thank you for documenting these recipes!
Made it today, so so delicious! Thank you for your recipes❤
I'm so glad you enjoyed the soup, Inna:).
Love love love love this soup! Awesome recipe as always!
Yay! That's wonderful, Natalya. It's a family favorite.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I made some for my elderly babushka (a brutally honest critic when it comes to food) and she was very impressed. It is sometimes hard for me to find authentic Russian recipes in English so I went off the picture of the soup on your site and knew this had to be close to what I grew up on and I was right! I especially enjoyed the brightness a little fresh dill and parsley added to the soup. I followed the recipe almost exactly except I had some leftover vegetable broth (3 cups) and used it plus the rest water. I loved the process of making the little freekadelyiky too! Thank you again! I will be making this soup again and again 🙂
I'm so glad you enjoyed the recipe, Shana and got to share it with your grandmother. It's so thoughtful of you to make it for her.
Thank you for great recipe. Very delicious and easy to make.
This is a delicious recipe for a fast soup!
I don’t eat meat so I replaced the meat balls with soft tofu. I’m not sure how similar it is to the original recipe but it’s pretty good in my book!
Can this be converted into an instant pot recipe? Can you make a version of that on your blog/website? That would be amazing!!!
I'm not Olga, but FWIW, I make this recipe in our Instant Pot ***all the time,*** (not pressure cooking--just by using the saute feature and adjusting the temp as needed). There's no reason to use the pressure cooker feature for this recipe itself, tho, b/c the veg really needs to "sweat" to develop their flavors first, and also the meatballs cook in the simmering broth very quickly--much less time than it would take for the IP to come up to pressure. The IP is great, however, for keeping the soup warm until serving once cooked.
Also, I've made this soup sooo many times--it's such a well written recipe because one step leads to the next and there's very little down-time. While the veg is sweating, you're dicing the potatoes / While the potatoes are cooking, you're making the meatballs / As soon as the potatoes have finished cooking, you're ready to carefully pop the meatballs in the broth one at a time. Once you've done that last step, the soup is basically done in 10 or so more minutes.
I could be wrong, but I don't see how this recipe could be a typical dump-and-go IP pressure-cooked recipe w/o messing up the meatballs...? But I looooooove assembling the soup in the IP and using the "keep warm" feature on while everyone's eating their first bowl (because they will immediately want seconds).
I printed out this recipe years and years ago and it has become a family favorite. My mom has called it "the best soup" she's ever eaten and asks me to make it for her whenever I visit.
I noticed you changed the recipe slightly from the original (or, at least, from the one I printed out many years ago). In the recipe I printed out originally, the vegetables were cooked/sweated in a separate skillet and then added to the simmering water afterwards (in which the potatoes were already cooking). In the current recipe, the soup is made all in one pot.
The only reason I mention this is that recently I was in the kitchen preparing to make this soup and I was too lazy to go find my recipe folder, so I looked it up on my ipad and followed the updated recipe (except we use angel-hair pasta, not rice). The soup was really, really good--but it definitely wasn't the same as the original we were used to. I thought it was just me, so the next week I made it following your original (?) recipe, and my husband even commented, "The soup tastes better this time. What did you do differently?"
I'm not a natural at cooking (at all), but in my mind I think cooking/sweating the vegetables separately made a big difference, probably because the ingredients are very simple and pure--by which I mean the technique adds something I can't name to the final dish.
Just thought I would mention this in case anyone else had a similar experience. Oh, also--in the original printout I had, it called for angel-hair pasta (broken into thirds) instead of rice, which we always use, and it is soooooooo goooooood. (I boil the pasta separately to keep the soup broth light and fresh and not too starchy.)
I hope you read this *NOT* as a criticism of the above recipe, but only as one person's observation, as this has truly become a beloved recipe in my family. I always appreciate combining steps and everything to make the cooking process easier, but in this case we all noticed that some of the "magic" or "brightness" of this simple soup was lost when I didn't sweat the veg separately.
Excellent soup! Filled with flavor and inexpensive, I actually had most of the ingredients on hand. I used half of a boneless, skinless chicken breast, and it was plenty for four adults. I added a little celery as suggested, and seasoned with fresh parsley and dried dill and chives. A keeper! Thanks, Olga!
Great recipe, we make it all the time 5/5!