Soups On!

Last week when I was at the Olive Garden I fell in love with their Zuppa soup. I enjoyed it so much that the next day I started searching for the recipe on the Internet. I found several recipes and lots of reviews that claimed that the soup turned out just like the Olive Gardens. I was way excited! I made it today for a special President’s Day Family Night that we had. I doubled the recipe and it made A TON of soup! One batch would have made enough to feed all seven of us, but who complains about leftover soup? It just gets better! Here is the recipe that I used. (this was the recipe BEFORE I doubled it)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound bulk mild Italian Sausage
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 4 slices bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 5 chicken bullion cubes
• 10 cups water
• 6 potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 head chopped kale

1. Cook the Italian sausage and red pepper flakes in a large pot over medium heat until crumbly and cooked through. Remove from pot and refrigerate while preparing the rest of the soup.

2. Using the same pot, cook bacon until crispy. Add onions and garlic and cook until translucent.

3. Add the bullion cubes and water to the pot. Bring to a boil. Add potato slices. Turn down heat and let simmer until the potatoes are tender. This should take about 20 minutes.

4. Mix in heavy cream and sausage and heat through. Mix in kale and let boil for five minutes.

Serve with a good bread. ENJOY!

I will definitely make this soup again, it was awesome! I don’t know if it is identical to Olive Gardens, but it is really close! Here are some things that I would recommend doing if you ever decide to try this recipe:

-The original recipe calls for 1 ½ teaspoons of crushed red pepper. I started with ½ teaspoon, and found it to be plenty! (Seriously, 1 ½ would be way to much!) Start low and then go up.

-If you don’t get all of the sausage grease off before adding it back into the soup, the grease all floats to the top and makes the soup kind of pink. Next time I will set the sausage to drain on top of a stack of paper towels so it absorbs the fat.

-I think next time I will use half and half instead of heavy cream just to be a bit healthier, and I don’t think it will make much of a difference.

-Don’t overcook the potatoes, they will fall apart!

-The recipe doesnt include salt, but depending on the bacon and bullion cubes that you use, you may need to add some. I added about 1/2 teaspoon per batch about the same time that I added in the water and bullion.

-If there is not fresh kale available you can use fresh spinach (or so I have heard!) but I really LOVE the fresh kale in this! It was my first time ever using kale, and it was actually really easy to find.


Let me know if you ever decide to try the recipe out. I would highly recommend it!