"The tortellini add a lot of substance to this soup, making it a great all-in-one dinner. This version is my favorite combination of flavors, but it can easily be tailored based on your own palate and what’s in season in your area. For instance, you can swap the spinach for really any green that you prefer. If you want a heartier base, add more roasted tomatoes, or for a lighter consistency, try increasing the chicken broth. The best part? Almost any combination will yield really great leftovers." —Joanna Gaines
From Magnolia Table, Volume 2 by Joanna Gaines. Copyright © 2020 by Joanna Gaines. Reprinted by permission of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. —Food52
Traditional tortellini are ring-shaped, bite-size stuffed pasta from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Frozen tortellini are a modern convenience and weeknight godsend. Thanks to them, this one-dish dinner from Joanna Gaines can get on the table in under 30 minutes, without so much as breaking a sweat. And it’s ripe for riffing, too. While of course you can’t have spinach tortellini soup without, well, spinach, don’t let that stop you from swapping in whatever leafy green you have around. (We won’t tell.) Tuscan kale, baby arugula, or Swiss chard would all be thrilled to step in. Likewise, the canned cannellini beans could be swapped out for chickpeas or even meaty pintos. If you don’t have, or don’t want to buy, both parsley and basil, pick your favorite and just double the quantity to ¼ cup of a single herb (and on that note, we bet dill or chives would be great). To make the dish vegetarian, simply ditch the chicken broth and replace it with an equal volume of vegetable broth, or mushroom broth for bonus umami. All that said, the bread alongside for dipping and dunking is nonnegotiable—don’t skip it. Pro tip: If you love this spinach tortellini soup the first time you make it, double the batch the next time, then freeze the leftovers in pint containers for even speedier dinners or lunches down the road. Just pop in the fridge the night beforehand, let thaw, then heat up on the stovetop or in the microwave.
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