Italian Sausage Soup: A Hearty & Wholesome Soup You’ll Love

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I like my soups hearty with a bit of meat, a bit of veggies and a bit of starch.

This soup has it all. 

Sausage, potatoes, beans, onions, spinach…mmmm good!

The best part about this soup? It’s totally a one pot meal!

The second best part about this soup? It includes BACON!

Sold? I thought you would be. 😉

Italian Sausage Soup

Source: Tablespoon.com**(see note)

Ingredients:

• 2 slices bacon
• 2 large russet potatoes cut into chunky cubes (about a 1/2 inch size cube)
• 1/2 lb Italian Sausage, casing removed (my sausage was Chicken Italian Sausage. It had mozzarella in it, which might have made my soup just a tad bit more awesome)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes***
• 1 carton low sodium chicken broth (32 oz)
• 4 cups spinach
• 1 can cannelloni beans (15-19 oz) washed and drained
• 1 cup half and half (I didn’t have half and half. So I did half a cup heavy cream and half a cup of milk. Worked fine)

Directions:

1. In a large deep pot, cook your bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and don’t eat it! Seriously…don’t. Crumble it and set it aside.
2. Crumble sausage and cook until browned in the same pot. Remove from pan and set aside. (you might want to drain your sausage. I didn’t, and as you can tell from the picture above, the soup had a bit of grease in it. Which is not a huge deal, but next time I’ll be sure to drain and pat down the sausage after cooking)
3. Now throw your onions, potatoes, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes into the same pot. Pour the chicken broth on top and bring to a boil.
4. After bringing the pot to a boil, take the temperature down to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes.
5. Add crumbled bacon, sausage, spinach and beans to the pot and cook for 10 more minutes or until potatoes are cooked through (took me about 15 minutes)
6. Just before serving, add half and half and cook just until heated through.

**Note: the original recipe asks for a lot more liquid than my version and also subs in kale for spinach. I like my version better, but feel free to check out the original as well!
***The kids weren’t HUGE fans of this soup. I eyeballed the red pepper flakes and might have put a bit more than 1/4 teaspoon in. It was a bit hot. It was fine for me and my husband, but if you have kiddos eating it, you might want to cut back or just put the red pepper flakes on your individual bowl instead of in the community pot.

This soup was so yummy and comforting and even better the next day!

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