Spicy Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup

Last week I came upon this recipe for this potato and kale frittata.  I love making frittatas (is that the correct plural?) and since we had a bunch of potatoes from the farmer’s market that needed to be used, it was a perfect dinner.

But the problem with buying kale is that then you have a ton of kale.  But it wasn’t really a problem, I had the perfect soup recipe to use it up (I’m so glad it’s been cool enough to make soup again).  But in order to be perfect, the recipe needed hot Italian sausage.   Just a few weeks ago, I wrote that, if and when we purchased meat again, we’d  “buy it from one of the local farms so we know where its coming from and how the animals were treated.”  Of course, at that time I hadn’t actually bought meat for months.  It’s funny how “normal” being meat-free has become.  And so, last Thursday, I bought my first locally, humanely raised meat.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn’t much more expensive than the natural (but probably not humane) sausage at the supermarket.  In addition to being really, really delicious, the soup didn’t seem to be as greasy as it’s sometimes been in the past when I’ve used supermarket sausage.

Obviously, you can make this soup with any kind of hot Italian sausage.  In fact, sweet sausage would probably work fine too.   The original recipe claims to model Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana, but I don’t think it does.  You can find more accurate ones online.  Nevertheless, it’s really good.

Spicy Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup

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Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Servings 4 main dish servings

Ingredients

  

• 5.5 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 medium potatoes cubed (or the equivalent...I used six red potatoes because we had them)
• 4 cups chopped kale
• 1 lb. Italian sausage

Instructions

 

• Cut the sausage into 1" pieces and cook them in a skillet until cooked through.  Remove from the heat and set aside.
• Meanwhile, combine the stock and cream in a saucepan and cook over medium heat.
• Add the potatoes and kale to the soup.
• When the sausage has cooled, cut the slices into "soup sized" pieces.  It's really all a matter of preference, but the smaller you cut them, the more sausage it seems like there is.  Add the sausage to the soup.
• Let the soup simmer until the potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally.

…and we still had kale left over to freeze.