Italian Sausage Bean Soup

Sausage, bean and kale soup in a saucepan.

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Italian Sausage Bean Soup

This Italian sausage bean soup is the ultimate comfort food. It's thick and creamy without a drop of cream, and packed with fiber and goodness.

Prep Time15

Cook Time35

Total Time50

Course: Soups

Cuisine: American, Italian

Keyword: Bean Soup, Sausage Soup

Servings: Servings

Calories: 317kcal

Author: Dara Michalski | Cookin' Canuck

Ingredients

Olive oil spray
10 ounces (3 links) mild Italian chicken sausage raw links, not pre-cooked (such as Isernio's)
2 teaspoons olive oil
½ yellow onion chopped
2 carrots cut into thin half-circles
1 large celery stalk chopped
½ teaspoon kosher salt divided
½ teaspoon ground black pepper divided
4 garlic cloves minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
¾ teaspoon crushed dried rosemary
1 tablespoon tomato paste
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth (See Note 1)
2 cans (14 ounces each) low-sodium cannellini beans drained and rinsed (See Note 2)
1 bay leaf
1 ½ cups chopped kale
3 tablespoons minced Italian parsley (flat-leaf parsley)
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Lightly coat with olive oil spray. Squeeze the sausage out of the casings into the saucepan. Crumble the sausage while cooking until the sausage is cooked through and starts to brown. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium. Heat the olive oil. Sauté the onion, carrot and celery with ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper until the onion is translucent, 7 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic, oregano, thyme and rosemary, and cook for another minute.
Add the tomato paste to the vegetables. Cook, stirring constantly, until the tomato paste starts to darken. This takes about 2 minutes.
Add the broth, beans, bay leaf, ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaf.
Use an immersion blender to break up some of the beans. Just 5 or 6 blitzes should do it. CAUTION! Be sure that the head of the immersion blender is fully immersed in the soup so that you don't spray yourself with hot soup.
If you don't have an immersion blender, scoop a ladleful or two of the soup into a blender and pulse a few times. Be sure to release the steam after each blitz to avoid blowing the lid off the blender.
Stir the cooked sausage, kale and parsley into the soup. Simmer for a minute or two to soften the kale. Taste and adjust the seasonings to suit your preference. I typically add more salt and pepper.

Notes

Note 1: I call for low-sodium broth in this recipe, which allows you to adjust the salt to your preference. Be sure to taste the soup at the end and adjust the seasonings. It will likely need additional salt and pepper.

Note 2: White kidney beans and Great Northern beans are good alternatives.

Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I provide nutritional information for my recipes as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using the Lose It! app calculator. While I attempt to provide information that is as accurate as possible, you should calculate the nutritional information independently before relying on it.

Nutrition