This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
This Creamy Tortellini Soup recipe consists of layers upon layers of cozy flavor! It’s an easy vegetarian soup recipe loaded with cheese tortellini and tender veggies cooked in a flavorful, creamy broth.
If you love this recipe for tortellini soup, your next one on the list to try should be my creamy crack chicken soup and then this warm and cozy creamy chicken noodle soup.
This creamy Tortellini Soup is so simple yet so delicious. It combines cheesy tortellini and fresh spinach in a creamy broth, made with just the right amount of roux and a splash of milk. It’s easy to make in just 30 minutes using only one pot, and it results in a perfect, comforting meal.
How do I know? Anything with cheese and soup is an instant hit with the tweens in our house. This cheese tortellini soup is no exception. They love the creamy, cheesy goodness, and I love how quick and easy it is to prepare, making it a go-to weeknight dinner for us.
Why We Love This Tortellini Soup
- Quick: Ready in 30 minutes, it’s your go-to for a speedy, hearty meal.
- Creamy Comfort: Cheesy tortellini and creamy, velvety broth offer a soul-soothing dinner experience.
- Vegetarian: Packed with veggies and protein, this tortellini soup recipe is a vegetarian dish that is so tasty and really satisfying.
- Versatile: Easily adaptable, make it your own with personalized tweaks to ingredients or seasonings.
Ingredients You’ll Need
You might already be aware, but I’m a vegetable lover in a house full of pasta fiends. This creamy veggie soup filled with tortellini is our meeting ground!
- Butter: For sauteing your veggies. Use salted or unsalted butter, just remember to adjust the amount of salt.
- Vegetables: You’ll need a yellow onion, fresh garlic, carrots, and baby spinach.
- Seasonings: I seasoned the tortellini soup with Italian seasoning, salt, and freshly cracked black pepper.
- Flour: All-purpose flour forms the base for a quick and easy roux to thicken the soup.
- Vegetable Broth: Use low-sodium vegetable broth if you’re making vegetarian soup. Otherwise, chicken broth will also work.
- Tortellini: Get one package of frozen tortellini. I make this soup recipe with cheese tortellini, but you can use your favorite variety.
- Cream: You can use full cream, milk (I use 2%), or half-and-half, depending on how creamy you prefer your tortellini soup.
How to Make Creamy Tortellini Soup
Get out a big pot – just one, because I’m all about that one-pot dinner life – and let’s make this quick soup!
- Sauté: First, sauté onion, garlic, and carrots with Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Once the veggies are fragrant and tender, whisk in the flour to make the roux.
- Make the Broth: Gradually pour in the broth, whisking until smooth. The base for your soup should be clump-free so that the end result is oh-so-creamy! Once combined, bring the pot to a boil.
- Add Tortellini and Spinach: While the soup boils, stir in the frozen tortellini and fresh spinach leaves. Simmer for a few minutes more to get the tortellini heated through.
- Add Cream: Pour in your choice of cream, then stir continuously as the soup returns to a boil. Let the cream cook and thicken for a few minutes, then take the pot off the heat. Season the tortellini soup to taste with salt and pepper, then serve!
Recipe Tips And Variations
Look through the following few tips to perfect that tortellini soup and take it to the next level of deliciousness!
- Adding heavy cream. Lower the heat before adding the cream, and stir continuously as you pour it in. This technique helps prevent the soup from curdling.
- Leave out the cream. For a dairy-free version, use olive oil or coconut oil in place of butter. Swap out the milk or cream with your choice of dairy-free alternatives, like oat, coconut, or rice milk.
- Less carbs. To lower the carbs, omit the carrots and use this low carb pasta.
- Protein options. Add cooked, shredded chicken to make creamy chicken tortellini soup, or check out my Instant Pot creamy chicken tortellini soup. You can also stir in cooked Italian sausage for a heartier soup.
- Veggie additions. Swap spinach for kale and add mushrooms, too, or take inspiration from my chicken vegetable soup.
What To Serve With Soup
Whoever coined the term “soup for the soul,” I’m pretty sure they were talking about my creamy tortellini soup recipe. I serve up bowls of this soup with a thick slice of my garlic and cheddar drop biscuits for myself and garlic breadsticks for the rest.
Also, before slurping up the soup, I almost always serve a big chef salad, then top the soup with add-ons like crumbled bacon, freshly grated parmesan cheese, croutons, or shredded cheddar. If all that doesn’t work, serve it bistro-style with a side of watermelon salad or this wonderful lemon kale Caesar salad paired with pinwheel sandwiches.
How to Store and Reheat Leftovers
- Store any leftover soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 to 4 days.
- Reheat portions in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove until the soup and tortellini are warmed through again.
- To freeze: While it’s technically safe to freeze this soup, I usually don’t recommend it. Cream soups are tricky to freeze, as the texture and flavor tend to change for the worse once the soup is thawed.
More Creamy Soups
- Roasted Creamy Mushroom Soup
- Cream of Zucchini Soup
- Creamy Tomato Bisque
- Slow Cooker Creamy Cauliflower Soup
- Creamy Roasted Asparagus Soup
- Creamy Lobster Bisque
Pin this now to find it later
Pin It
Creamy Tortellini Soup
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 large carrots, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 6 cups vegetable broth
- 12 ounces frozen tortellini
- 1 cup heavy cream, you can also use milk OR half-and-half.
- 5 ounces fresh baby spinach
Instructions
- Melt butter in a Dutch oven or soup pot set over medium heat.
- Add onions, garlic, carrots, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper, and cook over medium-low heat for 6 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Whisk in the flour; whisk until crumbly.
- Slowly add the broth and continue to vigorously whisk until everything is well combined and there are no clumps.
- Bring the soup to a boil and add in the frozen tortellini. Continue to cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 6 minutes or until tortellini is tender and heated through.
- Whisk in the cream or milk and add in the spinach; bring back to a steady boil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until smooth and thickened.
- Remove from heat and let it rest for 5 minutes. Taste the tortellini soup for salt and pepper and adjust accordingly.
- Serve.
Notes
- Cream: I like to use heavy cream for a creamier, silkier texture, but this soup also works with milk or half & half. Also, stir continuously when adding the cream so it doesn’t curdle.
- Dairy-Free: To make this soup dairy-free, use coconut oil instead of butter, and you can also use nut milk to replace the cream.
- Frozen Cheese Tortellini is my favorite frozen pasta for this particular soup, hence the name “tortellini soup”, but you can use whatever pasta you have on hand.
- Spinach: Baby spinach is my go-to leafy green for soups, but you can also use kale, watercress, collard greens, etc.
- Add Protein: Stir in some cooked, shredded chicken or cooked Italian pork sausage.
Nutrition
Nutritional info is an estimate and provided as courtesy. Values may vary according to the ingredients and tools used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed info.
Ok, it’s time to take a stand. Can we stop with the unnecessary life monologues before every recipe? Your preschooler and your cankles serve no purpose to this recipe. Just. Get. To. The. Recipe. Please. We don’t care about this other stuff.
Soup was delicious though.
I appreciate your comment and opinion, and thank you for sharing it, but this is my website, my content, my story. I can’t believe a picture of my daughter, and a bit of this-and-that about her first day of preschool would bother you so much. It was a proud-mom-moment and felt that I could share that with my readers. At the time (this recipe was shared in 2015), more people came to blogs to read about our personal stories. Times have changed, clearly, but I can’t imagine a picture of a young girl going to school would make you want to leave a comment like this.
Also, there’s a button at the very top of every post labeled as “JUMP TO RECIPE”. Click on it and you won’t have to deal with my monologues.
WOAH the negative comments on here made my jaw drop. 😨 Shame.
ANYWAY…. Made this tonight, delish!!!! I actually am weird and subbed out the carrot for tomatoes so with the cream it made it look like a Valentine’s Day soup 😅 also used chicken broth instead of veggie. So good tho!!!! ♥️♥️♥️
Thank you so much! I’m very glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Mk, consider how many free recipes you’ve gotten from bloggers. These don’t come without effort. Maybe try thanking instead of criticizing?
Katerina, your daughter is a cutie. Thanks for this recipe.
I have been making this recipe for a couple of years and it has become a regular favorite in my house. Thank you so much for sharing it!
That’s great! I am very happy you enjoyed it! Thank YOU! 🙂
This is a wonderful soup for this chilly day. I didn’t have carrots, so I made it with mushrooms, which made it a little watery (I should have known) but it was delicious! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
My husband and son LOVE this soup. It is super easy to make and is a great way to get them to eat vegetables.
I made this recipe and followed all of the directions. It did not turn out as creamy as I would have liked using just milk. I added half of an 8oz block of cream cheese (that’s all I had at the time) and it helped improve the consistency. Next time I make it, I’m going to use heavy cream to see if it improves the creaminess. Also, in my opinion, the amount of Italian seasoning, 1 Tbsp, is too much for my taste, the flavor was a little over powering. Next time I’m going to use half or even a third of it instead. Other than that, this was a really good soup that paired up nicely with garlic bread sticks.
Have you ever frozen this soup? I’m thinking I would leave the tortellini out and then cook it when reheating the soup since they’re so quick to cook, but wondered about freezing and reheating a cream based soup. I haven’t done it before. Thoughts?
Katerina, I never read blogs just recipies,, but for some reason I read yours and I loved it. Your are a very good commucator and I loved your humor.
I have made this soup several times and my family loves it. So easy and so yummy. Tonight I took it to church for a soup supper. Not even a spoonful left over! I was the only one that went home with an empty pot! People aaked for the recipe and I printed from your site with full credit to you! Thank you for an awesome recipe.
That is so wonderful!! I am very happy everyone enjoyed this soup!! THANK YOU, Cheryl! 🙂
I followed the recipe exactly as written and it is awesome! I used heavy cream and it was thick. I also used a chicken/herb tortellini which my wife loved. I may try a three cheese tortellini the next time. I have made this recipe a total of three times in the last 6 weeks so I know it spot on! Thanks for sharing.
I never boil cream because it will separate and break down…that includes half and half. I suggest not boiling the soup after the cream is added.
Is there a conversion for coconut flour (instead of wheat flour) & coconut milk (in place of dairy)? I’m trying to avoid everyone’s allergies in one dish.
Hi!
I’d use 1-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch in place of flour, if you can. In as far as dairy, you can definitely use non-dairy “milk”.
I made this tonight for the GF and I and it was delicious. I followed the recipe as written but the soup didnt thicken as i would have liked. Any suggestions?
You should make a simple roux with equal parts flour and butter then add that to your veggie broth in the recipe. The recipe doesn’t really specify to do it this way, which will make the flour more lumpy and take longer to thicken the broth. For my dairy I also use half and half. My soup turned out perfect and delicious! The only addition was a little parm at the end.
I had the same problem. I followed the recipe as written, using 2% milk, but it didn’t thicken up like i would have liked. The soup, though, was delicious. I will try the flour/butter trick next time or use a heavier cream in place of the milk. GF loved it so will definitely be making it again.
I have made this twice and my husband and I loved it. I didn’t have fresh carrots so I used canned carrots and added some polka kielbasa. It was delicious. Thank you for this wonderful recipe.