Recipe: Italian Sausage Soup

This recipe for Italian Sausage Soup is a quick and easy recipe… chock full of flavor.. all done in under 30 minutes… perfect for a weeknight meal. We had it with Herbed Parmesan Flatbread… a large Antipasto Salad… so delicious!

And best of all… there are leftovers of the soup in the fridge .. just waiting for lunch!

This recipe is slightly adapted from an Olive Garden recipe. I felt the soup needed more flavor so I used Hunts Tomatoes with Basil Garlic and Oregano... the can also was larger than originally called for. I used more beef broth, the original recipe got too thick. I also added garlic and chopped fresh basil.

TIPS

If you’re like me and buy frozen chopped spinach in the bag instead of boxes… I just estimated when I added the spinach… it was about 1 ¼ cups.

If you’re soup gets too thick… just add a bit more beef broth.

If you like a little more zip… use half sweet and half hot Italian sausage.

I have trouble finding ground Italian sausage… if all you can find is link sausage, use that instead… cook the links and then remove them from the pan… allow to cool enough to handle and slice the links and put them back into the pot.

If you do use link sausage… pierce the links with a fork to allow excess grease to cook out of the links. I wipe the pot out with paper towels to remove the excess grease.

You don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to prepare a delicious meal!






Recipe: Italian Sausage Soup

All you need:

1 lb. sweet Italian Sausage
1 cup white rice
1 can (14.5 oz) Hunts Tomatoes with Basil Garlic and Oregano
¼ cup chopped fresh basil
7 cups beef broth
½ teaspoon garlic powder
1 box (10 oz.) chopped spinach, thawed and drained if necessary
Salt and black pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan or Romano cheese for garnish

All you need to:

In a large soup pot, cook the sausage over medium high heat. Break up the sausage pieces as it cooks.

Add the rice, tomatoes, beef broth and garlic powder. Cook until rice is tender… I used Minute Rice so it was done in about 6 minutes.. depending on the rice you use.. it may take a bit longer.

Add the spinach and chopped basil. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Add the salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with grated cheese.