Dave's Italian Sausage and Kale Soup
photo by PanNan
- Ready In:
- 2hrs
- Ingredients:
- 14
- Serves:
-
12
ingredients
- 1 bunch kale
- 4 hot Italian sausages
- 1 large onion, Diced
- 5 garlic cloves, Diced
- 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped and seeded
- 793.78 g diced tomatoes
- 1360.77 g chicken broth
- 793.78 g water
- 29.58 ml butter
- 29.58 ml fresh parsley, finely chopped
- 14.79 ml basil
- 14.79 ml oregano
- 14.79 ml Season-All salt
- 14.79 ml red pepper flakes
directions
- This soup uses kale, but you can use any of the major greens you like. I have alternated in kale, escarole, and it has been reviewed with others using spinach. As the first review of this recipe indicates, using multiple pots can be a pain. However, the only reason to use two pots is if you are actually using kale. Other greens that are softer don't require blanching and as a result you can get away with using just one pot.
-
Using two pans, the soup pot and a regular 12 inch sauté pan:
- Step 1.
-
In the soup pot:
- Rinse the kale well, chopping off heavy stems.
- While the kale is wet just add to soup pot and add about a quarter cup of water. Blanch the kale leaves in pot, reserve liquid and leave in soup pot for now.
- Step 2.
- In the sauté pan.
- Skin the sausage, split lengthwise while raw with knife, and cut into bite sized pieces, so they look like small meatballs.
- Lightly brown the sausage (do not cook through) drain and set as aside.
- Make sure when cooking that you don’t burn the sausage as you will be cooking with the sausage grease next.
- Pour out any grease that will easily drip out, but leave a fine coat of the sausage grease on the pan for your next step and set pan aside for now.
- If you burn chunks of sausage to the pan, just use a paper towel to wipe out any black crust but leave some of the fat there.
- Step 3.
- Once the sausage is set aside take the large pieces of kale and chop into bite sized pieces. Return to the soup pot, keeping any liquid in the pot.
- Add broth and tomatoes to the pot with the kale and begin to heat on high.
- Step 4.
- Sauté onion, garlic and jalapeño pepper into the slightly greasy pan with the 2 table spoons of butter.
- When onions are slightly translucent or about 3 minutes, add spices to this mixture.
- Step 5.
- Add the sauté pan contents to the soup pot and add the sausage to the soup pot. Bring the entire mixture to a boil. After boiling for about 2 minutes, reduce heat to a medium low heat and simmer for about 1.5 hours.
-
Optional:
-
Option 1:
- If you like, add 1 cup of rice to this and at 8 ounces of water while cooking. Suggest you add the rice to the sauté pan and sauté with the onion mix for about 3 minutes before putting into the main soup pot.
-
Option 2:
- After soup has simmered for about half an hour alone, add a package of noodles of your choice and the 8 ounces of water.
-
Option 3:
- Add 3 Medium potatoes chopped into small pieces while raw, sauté with onions until the potato cubes are soft to the touch. Add to soup pot.
- Add 3 Medium potatoes chopped into small pieces while raw, sauté with onions until the potato cubes are soft to the touch. Add to soup pot.
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Reviews
-
We really enjoyed this soup! Used hot ital turkey sausage and didn't need to add the jalapeno or red pepper flakes. I also only used 1 can of tomatoes and didn't add any season salt, but did add 2 cans white beans. I blanched kale and just left in pot w/ water and added all other ingredients, which worked fine. Will play w/ this recipe to see if I can get it down to 1 pot (saute kale in pan after cooking sausage?). Wonderful hearty soup, perfect w/ crusty bread. Thanks so much for posting!
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We enjoyed this soup very much. The bunch of kale I had was huge (much to my younger son's dismay) and took over the soup a bit. But with all the spice and flavor I didn't mind one bit. The large number of steps in the directions almost made me think that this would be a difficult soup to make but I ended up just getting all the ingredients out and throwing it together "my way". I did steam the kale, though. Towards the end I threw in some mini cheese ravioli which made the soup even heartier. I will definitely make this soup again.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
David Hawkins
Newport Beach, California
Started washing dishes in restaurants (the Moose Lodge to be precise) at 13. Worked at a bunch of Long Island restaurants from 14 to 18, did salad prep, sous, breakfasts, line, short order and whatever role was open. Loved it, and kept cooking when I went into the Army at 18. By 22, stopped cooking for work, but still cook at home a lot. Now, I actually think I am a better cook than ever, and have even considered opening my own restaurant some day.