Tuscan Sausage and Kale Soup
This Italian sausage and kale soup is a healthier take on Olive Garden’s classic creamy soup – zuppa toscana. This easy recipe is dairy free, gluten free and almost paleo. Make it with spicy sausage or even substitute turkey sausage if you want. Makes 12 servings.
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Why I love this sausage and kale soup
I’ve been going a little soup crazy over the past few weeks. I know I’m completely ready for fall to hit, and I wanted to get my fall recipes in order so you guys have lots of options when you’re ready.
Last week, I shared a new healthy favorite – white turkey chili – and this week, I’m revamping two soup recipes from archives. This sausage and kale soup (aka zuppa toscana) and my minestrone soup.
I swapped the evaporated milk in this recipe for my favorite almond cooking milk to make it completely dairy free, and I’ve added white beans for a little extra protein and texture.
This recipe is a great option for meal prepping, since the ingredients hold up well in the fridge, and you can even substitute turkey sausage for a healthier meal. In fact, I normally do make it with turkey sausage, I just didn’t have it this time.
Here’s what you’ll need to make it
Equipment
Ingredients
This recipe calls for almond cooking milk. It is a shelf stable product and can be found in near the evaporated and condensed milk at your grocery store. If you can’t find it, you can easily substitute canned coconut milk and achieve a similar result.
To make this recipe gluten free, you’ll need to make sure you broth and sausage are also gluten free.
How to make sausage and kale soup
Sauté the sausage and vegetables. Heat a large pot to medium and brown the sausage, breaking it into pieces as you go.
Next add the onion and garlic, and continue cooking until the onion is translucent.
Simmer the kale and potatoes. Add the broth, potatoes and kale. Increase the heat and bring it to a boil.
Cover the pot and allow the kale to wilt and the potatoes to soften.
Thicken the soup. Mix the cornstarch and almond cooking milk together and stir it into the soup.
Add the beans and let the soup simmer until the broth has thickened.
FAQs about zuppa toscana (sausage and kale soup)
You can use kale stems in soup, but I would avoid any of the really large stems because they are unpleasant to eat. The stems are best used with making broths, when you would remove them before eating. Small pieces of stems should be fine in this recipe.
You can absolutely freeze this soup. As with all freezing, you can lose some of the texture when reheat. If you’re planning on freezing the whole thing, leave out the almond milk/thickener and add it when you reheat.
This soup should last for about 1 week in the fridge. That is assuming you used fresh ingredients. Always use your best judgment before consuming anything.
I like to freeze soup in large plastic containers (because that’s what I have), but you can use mason jars, ziplock bags, etc. Anything that is freezer friendly will work. Just be sure not to overfill them since the soup will expand when frozen.
More dairy free soup recipes:
- Baked potato soup
- Chicken tortilla soup
- Asparagus soup
- Autumn squash soup
- Creamy tomato soup
- Broccoli cheese soup
More fall favorites:
- Vegan pumpkin spice latte
- Apple pie bars
- Baked stuffed pork chops
- Cincinnati chili
- Slow cooker beef tacos
- White chicken chili
Tuscan Sausage and Kale Soup
This Italian sausage and kale soup is a healthier take on Olive Garden’s classic creamy soup – zuppa toscana. This easy recipe is dairy free, gluten free and almost paleo. Make it with spicy sausage or even substitute turkey sausage if you want.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
- Category: Soups
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 pound Italian sausage
- 1 1/2 pounds potatoes, cubed
- 1 bunch kale, chopped
- 1/2 cup almond cooking milk
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 8 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1 15-ounce can cannelini beans
- Salt & pepper, to taste
Instructions
- If necessary, remove sausage from its casing.
- Heat a large Dutch oven or stockpot to medium. Add sausage and cooking, breaking into pieces as you go, until no longer pink – about 5 minutes.
- Add onion and garlic. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent – about 5 minutes
- Increase heat to high, and add chicken broth and potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are soft.
- Reduce heat to medium, add kale and white beans. Simmer until kale is tender – about 10 minutes.
- In a small bowl, whisk almond cooking milk and cornstarch together. Stir into soup and let soup continue cooking until it has thickened – about 10 minutes.
- Remove from heat and season with salt & pepper to taste.
Find it online: https://www.simplywhisked.com/tuscan-turkey-sausage-kale-soup/
Published: August 27, 2019. Updated: April 7, 2022.
This looks SO good! I’ve always wanted to make a soup like this but never found a recipe I trusted. O LOVES kale–like.. his eyes light up every time I mentioned the “k word”, I swear, and this just looks so hearty without being too heavy. I read the other day you’re only in Kazakhstan for a couple months.. when you come back where will you guys go?
I’m going to go back to Green Bay in the beginning of February. When I was planning all of this out I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to handle it here so I planned a trip to Nashville with my friends for the end of February, and I don’t want t miss it. Marc will finish out the season and meet me in Green Bay, and then we’re really not sure what we are going to do after that. I guess we’re sort of playing everything by ear since everything depends on where he is going to play next season.
Ah! I didn’t know where home base was. You should lobby for the Predators! Then we could have midway brunch 🙂
Ha. I think it’s a little late for the NHL… but that would be really fun. I wish I had a blogging friend that lived near me. Imagine all the fun bloggy stuff we could do! Haha I’m not sure what bloggy stuff really is – I’m weird. I’m going to be in Nashville for my girls road trip though in February if you want to meet sometime then. How far away are you?
Ha, I figured, but I thought I might as well try! There’s SO MUCH fun bloggy stuff we could do. We could have brunches and dinner parties (in daylight.. ha!) where we make and photograph our dishes then decorate tons and photograph THAT. I’m 3 hours away from Nashville, so that’s a bit far 🙂
That would be so fun! I would love to do all of that – especially the daylight dinner parties. It would make for such good pictures. Maybe someday we will get to do it. You know when we’ve been blogging for a long time and making millions of dollars and we can fly anywhere we want all the time! (Just dreaming here…)
I will go ahead and take a bowl of this on this chilly day, please! Your food all looks SO good! And you photography it so well! May I ask what camera and lens you use most often? I am in the market for a new indoor lens…
Thanks. That’s really nice of you to say. I use a 35mm f1.8 with my Nikon D5100. I haven’t really tried other lenses other than this one and the kit lens, but I really like it. And, I think it’s a pretty affordable option as far as lenses go. What kind of lens do you use for outdoor stuff? (I’m assuming you use a different one since you said you wanted a new indoor one)
I have a Sony (kindof wish I went Nikon or Canon route, but the camera guy convinced me otherwise) and I have a 50 mm lens. I like it, but the house we are in right now is so DARK. Are you good at using your camera manually? I need to learn to do that better….
Hmmm. That’s interesting. I don’t know anything about Sony camera. Do you like it? I always use my camera on manual for food photography, but I’m still trying to figure it out when I’m outside and traveling. I am scared to use it on manual during vacations because I don’t want to end up with only out-of-focus pictures or pictures that aren’t properly exposed. I went for a walk around town the other day and practiced though, and the pictures turned out pretty good so maybe I am ready to trust myself. We’ll see. I bet using your camera on manual inside would really help if your house is dark.
I’d probably like it a lot better if I knew how to shoot manually with it. I need to google how to change the settings for indoor shooting. I became too reliant on manual for the same reason you stated of not wanting to miss anything.
I want to shoot our house decorated for Christmas for next week, so I hope to figure it out by then!
When I first started using my camera, I was reading a lot of tutorials for Pinterest, but I though the best were on . If you haven’t already been to Courtney’s blog, you should definitely check it out. And I also liked Kevin & Amanda’s post on taking holiday pictures. Anyway, just thought I would throw those out there for you in case you hadn’t already seen them. Sorry if you have already!
Looks so good and nutritious! A very hot plate of that in a cold day is a treat!
Love this recipe because it’s diary free! We made it once and just guessed on the amount of garlic used. How much garlic do you usually put in this?
I am OBSESSED with this recipe! I have shared it with everyone I know. It’s too good not to!
A little bit sloppy of a recipe: no indication on how much garlic to use, and no mention of oil.
Delicious!!!! I loved it so much
Absolutely delicious! I used turkey sausage in mine and it was so hearty, healthy, and comforting. Will be making again, thanks for the recipe!