This sausage, potato, and kale soup recipe is the perfect winter soup. It’s pure bliss in a bowl. Slightly spicy, slightly salty, and so easy to make!
My inspiration to make a sausage, potato, and kale soup recipe started with a lunch date with my husband at Olive Garden. We ordered the soup, salad, and breadsticks. Our server recommended the “Zuppa Toscana” soup, which was described as “spicy sausage, russet potatoes and cavolo greens in a creamy broth.” Sounds great, but tastes even better!
I decided to experiment with a homemade version until I achieved sheer sausage, potato, and kale soup perfection. I’ll admit that it doesn’t taste exactly like what you’ll find at the Olive Garden, but it’s so amazingly delicious that you won’t care.
Enjoy!
Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground spicy sausage
- 3 large russet potatoes, washed and sliced (No need to peel.)
- 1/2 bunch of kale, washed and chopped (Go ahead and wash and chop the other half, and store it in a plastic freezer bag for a second batch of soup in the future.)
- 6 cups fat-free, low sodium chicken broth
- 1 cup half and half (or heavy cream)
- 1.5 teaspoons fennel seeds
- 1.5 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions
- In a large pot, brown the ground sausage.
- Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.
- Turn down to a simmer and cook 15-30 minutes, until potatoes are soft and kale loses all of its bitterness.
Serve with crusty bread.
For the sausage, potato and kale soup if you swapped white beans for potatoes how much would you use? 1 can…..2 cans? This soup sounds amazing.
I’m not sure. I think two would be good. Let me know how it turns out!
I know this may sound like a stupid question but what kind of sausage did you use? Would a breakfast sausage work?
I use spicy ground sausage. If you don’t like spicy, you can sub ground sweet Italian sausage. If your grocery store doesn’t sell ground sausage, you can buy the big sausage links and remove the casing. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have other questions.
I made this for dinner the other night and it was absolutely amazing!! Definitely a keeper!
Yay! I’m so glad you liked it!! Thank you for leaving a comment to let me know!
Just wanted to stop back to say I had this recipe bookmarked for a while and finally got around to making it this last week. It was an immediate hit with my whole family! I expect it to be on the menu regularly around here! Thanks so much for sharing! Also, in case anyone would like to know… a friend told me one time she wasn’t getting around to chopping her greens up so she just froze them whole, only to discover that once frozen, they shatter quite satisfactorily. Cuts out another few minutes of prep work! 🙂
Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing the tip and that your family enjoyed the recipe!
Sounds sooo yummy but neither my daughter nor myself can handle dairy…any suggestions for a substitution for 1/2 & 1/2?
How about lactaid? It won’t be as thick, but I think there’s needs to be some kind of milk substitute in there.
Try a unsweetened soy milk and add a cornstarch slurry (one equal part corn starch and one equal part liquid). 1 – 2 tsp of the slurry will be plenty for the broth, and just use the soy milk to taste. The slurry will thicken the soup and the soy milk will give it a nice body and color.
My daughter is the same. I just use lactose-free milk. If you have time you can reduce the lactose-free milk by heating it gently on the stove. Takes a while and you need to stir it, but it does give you something thicker like the consistency of cream.
I made this tonight for husband when before he got home from a long trip. I kept “testing” it so often I ate half the pot! I normally have to doctor recipes up but this one is spot on! Thank you! It’s amazing!
Thank you so much! I test and retest everything that I post on this site in the hopes that it will be perfect the very first time someone else makes it, so your comment means a lot to me. Glad you liked the soup! 🙂