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Sausage Potato & Kale Soup, oh my, are you AMAZING!
I don’t know where you’ve been all my life and this was quite the find and it will absolutely be joining my recipe repertoire for the colder months. The sausage, pancetta, potatoes, kale, garlic, onion, cream and Parmesan cheese, just delivers a cozy bowl of deliciousness!
And it is cooked in one-pot, so clean-up is easy!
I was inspired to create this soup after watching a WMUR Cook’s Corner segment, Sausage & Bean Soup. The soup intrigued me because we like sausage and creamy soups. After doing some recipe research, I saw many copy-cat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana and I thought, boy do I need to make this happen and am so glad I did!!!
Definitely give this recipe a try if you’re a lover of Zuppa Toscana Soup or just after a great creamy Sausage Soup because it’s AMAZING! I hope you enjoy, please share your feedback if you give it a try, and cheers 🥂!
Some Recipe Notes
- Soup Type – This isn’t traditionally a thick soup and I will note I was planning to add a tablespoon or two of flour after cooking the sausage, but decided against it because I didn’t have much grease in the pot. You certainly could add flour, if you’d like a thicker soup or a cornstarch slurry, as it cooks.
- Cured Pork Options – I used pancetta because that’s what I had on hand. And while many recipes call for bacon, I appreciated the pancetta because it delivered porky goodness. Both pancetta and bacon are cured pork made from the same cut, the pork belly. Bacon delivers smokiness and pancetta is not smoked and has a deeper pure pork flavor than bacon. Either option is perfectly acceptable!
- Sausage Options – I used 2 mild sausage links and 2 hot sausage links with a 1/2tsp of red pepper flakes. It had heat and was super yummy, but if you LOVE heat, go with all hot sausage. If you’re not a fan of spice, go mild sausage and remove the red pepper flakes. If you’re using links, make sure you remove the sausage from the casing because ground sausage is best in this recipe.
- Deglazing the Soup Pot – The pancetta/bacon and sausage will leave brown bits of goodness, i.e. fond, and to remove that tastiness, use white wine which will deglaze the pot and release that flavor. If you’d rather cook without alcohol, use 1-2TBSP of lemon juice.
- Potato Options – My recipe uses red bliss potatoes. Yukon Gold potatoes are a good replacement because they have a similar flavor and texture. You could also use other thin-skin potatoes such as white or yellow potatoes. I kept my skins on because I like the color and flavor is added, just make sure you scrub your potato skins if you plan to leave them on.
- Cream Component – You want the creaminess in this soup! To achieve that, I used 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup milk. You could certainly use all milk and eliminate the cream completely. If you do use all milk, you likely won’t have the same creaminess, but I’m sure it would be equally delicious. If you’d rather just use 1 cup or cream or milk, substitute the second cup with chicken stock. PLEASE TEMPER YOUR CREAM AND/OR MILK because you do not want it breaking when you add it to your soup pot. To temper, add a little warm stock to your cream/milk and bring the temperate up so it doesn’t get shocked when you add it to the pot 👍.
- Acceptable Greens – I used kale leafy greens. You could certainly use Tuscan Kale, just remove the tough seams. Spinach could also work for the non-kale fans.
- To Salt or Not – Sausage and bacon are both rather salty, so you might want to avoid over salting. I did salt my greens as they began to wilt on top of the soup. Definitely taste at the end to see if you need to adjust the salt levels, keeping in mind you’re also adding Parmesan, which is rather salty too.
- Wonderful Leftovers – Equally delicious, just make sure you warm it to a safe level after it’s refrigerated.
Sausage Potato & Kale Soup
Incredible creamy delicious soup with a bit of spice and crunch from the fresh kale!
Servings 6 servings
Ingredients
- EVOO
- 4 oz pancetta
- 1 medium-sized white onion, chopped
- 1 lbs ground sausage
- ½ tsp Italian seasoning
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
- ¼ cup white wine
- 4 medium-sized red potatoes, chopped equal sizes
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup water
- 4 cups fresh kale, hard stems removed
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- salt & ground pepper, for seasoning
Instructions
- Begin by frying your pancetta in a large stockpot with a bit of EVOO on medium high heat. Add the onions once the pancetta gets some color, 5ish minutes.
- Add the sausage, Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes and let the sausage get brown on one side. Once the sausage looks cooked more or less, add the garlic and white wine and scrape the bottom of the pot to release all those brown sausage bits because that's flavor.
- Add the potatoes and toss together.
- Add the chicken stock and water and simmer the potatoes for 20ish minutes on medium heat with a cover.
- At the 20 minute mark, check your potatoes to ensure they're cooked. Add tempered cream and milk.
- Add the fresh kale and salt, if you so desire.
- Add the Parmesan cheese and cook until the kale is wilted. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning, as needed.
- Serve warm and enjoy, cheers!
