Zuppa Toscana

I recently came across this soup recipe and made it tonight - it was so good! I don't think I have ever put potatoes in soup before (I always add pasta), but this was delicious and is the perfect recipe for anyone who is gluten-free. Apparently this soup is served at Olive Garden, which I do not go to so I've never had it. There are many copycat recipes out there and most have bacon and kale in them but this one was more appealing to me. This recipe is very straightforward and easy and I much prefer spinach over kale. Sadly I can't have heavy cream but I found a Country Crock dairy-free alternative that I used, which worked well (this Silk one is even better). It would have tasted just fine without it though (if you leave it out, replace it with a bit more broth). I really love the addition of flour which makes the broth thicker than most soup recipes. I did find that it needed more salt and pepper so I increased those amounts below, and I still added more of both at the end of cooking. Otherwise I followed the recipe and wouldn't change a thing next time.

This recipe did not make that much but it was enough for my use tonight, so depending on how many people you are cooking for you might need to double or even triple the recipe. My husband wasn't home but I had 2 bowls of it, one of my sons had a very small bowl of it and I gave the rest to a friend who isn't feeling well. I also made bread this morning and dipping the toasted crusty bread in this soup was amazing.

This is a delicious, hearty soup - a great fall and winter recipe that I'll be making again very soon!

Edit: This soup was so good that I made it again the following night when my husband was back home. He loved it! This will be in our dinner rotation for sure.

Zuppa Toscana

Recipe from Once Upon a Chef Blog

 

Make delicious Zuppa Toscana at home with this easy recipe! It’s filled with sausage, potatoes, and spinach in a creamy broth that feels like a satisfying meal on its own. 

 

1 pound Italian sausage (mild or spicy, depending on your preference), removed from casings

1 medium yellow onion, diced

2 medium carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

4 cups chicken broth

1 pound Yukon gold potatoes, diced into ½-inch pieces

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional, for more heat)

2 cups baby spinach, stems removed, packed

½ cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for serving

 

In a large pot or Dutch oven, cook the sausage over medium heat, breaking it up into small pieces as it browns, 5 to 7 minutes. Once browned, use a slotted spoon to transfer the sausage to a colander in the sink to drain, leaving about 1 tablespoon of the drippings in the pot for sautéing the vegetables.

 

Add the diced onion and carrots to the reserved drippings (if the pot seems dry, add a bit of oil). Sauté over medium heat until softened, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly, until fragrant. Do not brown. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir until fully incorporated, about 1 minute.

 

Gradually pour in the chicken broth, and use a wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the potatoes, salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes (if using). Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer. Stir occasionally to prevent the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

 

While the soup simmers, transfer the sausage to a paper towel-lined plate. With more paper towels, blot the sausage to absorb any excess grease.

 

Add the baby spinach and cooked sausage to the soup. Simmer until the spinach is wilted, a few minutes. Stir in the cream and cheese and continue to simmer until everything is warmed through. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning if needed. Serve hot, passing more cheese at the table.

 

Serves 4.

 

Notes:

Make-Ahead Instructions: You can prepare the soup up to 2 days in advance. After cooking, let it cool to room temperature, then store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. When ready to serve, reheat the soup gently over low heat, stirring occasionally, until warmed through. You may need to add a splash of broth or water if the soup has thickened too much.

 

Freezing is not recommended.

 

This soup is endlessly adaptable, so don’t be afraid to play around with ingredients depending on what you’ve got on hand. A few ideas:

·       Swap the sausage: Use turkey or chicken sausage in place of pork.

·       Toss in extra veggies: Diced bell peppers or mushrooms would be great; just sauté them first. If you want to swap out the spinach, kale or Swiss chard would work well. (Because they’re both sturdier than spinach, add them a little earlier so they can soften up.)

·       Add beans for heartiness: White beans (like cannellini or great northern) give the soup one more layer of texture and add a creamy bite.

Before adding the cream in

Butternut Squash Soup

I had a big butternut squash in my fridge that I needed to use and wasn't sure what to make with it. Usually I would cut it up and roast it in the oven and serve with pork, but this squash was pretty big. I also had some ricotta in my fridge and wanted to try a ricotta gnocchi recipe, so I decided I would make that with the butternut squash. At first I thought I would roast the squash to serve with the gnocchi but I knew that would not use up much of it. Then I thought of making this butternut squash soup and using it as a "sauce" on the gnocchi, serving the rest as soup or freezing it.

The soup was rather thick since my butternut squash yielded about 10 cups of cup up squash, so I used a little bit of pasta water to thin out the portion of the soup that I was using as sauce for the gnocchi, which worked really well. My gnocchi sauce turned out delicious! I had some left over Dutch oven bread that I made last night, and dipping that in the soup was delicious as well!

My mom and my sister Maria make this soup recipe so I've had it before and knew it was good but this was my first time making it. It's very simple and straightforward. Since I'm lactose intolerant, I omit the butter, and I appreciate that this recipe doesn't use cream in it like some others. I used my immersion blender, which made the last step very easy. If you love butternut squash, give this recipe a try!

Butternut Squash Soup

Recipe Courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

 

2 Tablespoons butter, at room temperature

2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped into ½-inch pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

3½ pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 7 to 8 cups)

6 cups low-sodium chicken stock

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

In an 8-quart stockpot, add the butter and oil and melt together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add the squash and the chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil. Continue to boil until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth and thick. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Keep the soup warm over low heat. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls.

 

Note: The cooked vegetable mixture can also be pureed (after cooling for about 5 minutes) by ladling, in batches, into a food processor or blender and blended until smooth.

Some soup thinned out with pasta water and mixed with homemade gnocchi!

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach)

I came across another delicious soup recipe that is very easy to make. I changed the recipe a bit by taking out the garlic, onions and red pepper. Since I left those out, I increased the amount of carrots and celery to about 1.5 cups of each. If you like more diced tomatoes, you could use a 28-ounce can of them. I added an entire bag of baby spinach and it would be good with that amount, half the bag, or even without it all together if you don't have any. I also cooked my pasta (I used Rotini) separately and added it into the individual bowls of pasta. That way it doesn't soak up all the broth and get soggy.

Even without the onion and garlic, this soup was full of flavor! Use the link above if you want to see the original recipe. The recipe below reflects the changes I made.

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach)

Recipe Adapted from Cucina by Elena

 

Easy Italian Sausage Soup Recipe (with Spinach) brings together hearty Italian flavors and nourishing ingredients. It’s a simple, rustic dish perfect for a cozy evening!

 

1 pound Italian sausage (mild or spicy), casings removed (or 1 pound ground Italian sausage)

4 medium carrots, peeled and diced

4 ribs celery, diced

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon coarse black pepper

64 ounces low-sodium chicken broth

1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes

1½ cups Ditali pasta or another small pasta, dry

1½ cups fresh spinach, chopped

Freshly grated Parmigiano cheese, for serving

Fresh basil, for garnish

 

 

Cook the sausage: In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, crumble the Italian sausage and cook until browned and no longer pink. Transfer the cooked sausage to a plate and drain any excess fat from the pot, leaving two tablespoons to sauté the vegetables.

 

Sauté the vegetables: In the same pot, add the carrots and celery. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables are softened, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in Italian seasoning, salt, and black pepper, cooking for another minute.

 

Simmer the soup: Return the sausage to the pot. Add the chicken broth and diced tomatoes with their juice. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld together.

 

Stir in pasta and cook, stirring often, until pasta is cooked to desired doneness, about 10 minutes. Alternately, cook the pasta separately, drain and serve with the soup.

 

Stir the chopped spinach into the soup, cooking just until wilted, about 1-2 minutes. 

 

Garnish and serve: Ladle the soup into bowls and top with freshly grated Parmigiano cheese and a sprinkle of fresh basil. Serve hot. Enjoy.

 

Serves 6.

Italian Wedding Soup

Last year my sister Maria sent me an Italian Wedding Soup recipe she makes for her family. I never got around to making it, but I recently saw an Instagram reel from Dena Fenza and it reminded me I still needed to try it, so I tried Dena's recipe tonight, and it was incredible! Both of the recipes linked above are pretty similar in terms of the ingredients (although the amounts differ slightly), but Dena browns her meatballs on the stove and the other recipe bakes them in the oven.

This soup takes a little more time to prepare than other soups because of having to form the little meatballs, but it is well worth the effort! You can do some of the prep ahead of time - I chopped the veggies and made the meatball mixture in the early afternoon. I used a teaspoon measuring spoon to scoop the meat mixture so they would all be the same size. I counted about 75 mini meatballs! I refrigerated them on a plate until after I picked up my kids from school - that made it easy to start cooking as soon as I got home. I made it in my large wide round dutch oven so there was plenty of room to brown all the meatballs at once. I cooked my Acini Di Pepe separately so it wouldn't get too soft, which worked out well for my picky eater who only wanted broth and pasta.

The recipe below reflects any changes I made to the original. Next time I may leave the onion out (at the request of one of my sons) and try beef broth instead of chicken broth to see which I prefer. I thought the soup was delicious as-is though!

Italian Wedding Soup

Recipe Adapted from Micia Mammas Blog

 

Italian wedding soup is a kid friendly, easy and delicious soup that everyone will love. The soup is made up of broth, veggies, pasta and the star of the recipe is cute mini meatballs. It is a perfect soup for a cold winter day. 

 

This Neopolitan soup is originally called “minestra maritata”, which translates to “married soup” It is not served at Italian weddings but its meaning refers to how its flavors come together in a beautiful marriage!

 

Growing up this soup was a dish that my Grandpa made all the time.  I can still remember helping him roll the mini meatballs. He taught me to sear the meatballs first. It adds such great flavor to the soup. The smell of it just brings me right back to his kitchen. 

 

 

Meatballs:

½ pound ground pork

½ pound ground beef

¼ cup panko breadcrumbs

¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

¾ teaspoon garlic powder

3 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or 3 teaspoons dry parsley

¼ cup olive oil

 

Soup:

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup celery, diced

1 cup carrots, peeled and diced

64 ounces chicken broth

1½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

5 ounces baby spinach

1 pound Acini Di Pepe pasta

 

 

In a bowl, combine the pork and beef with the bread crumbs, Pecorino Romano, beaten egg, salt, pepper, garlic powder and chopped fresh parsley. Form into mini meatballs (about 1 teaspoon or less each).

 

In a soup pot over low/medium heat add ¼ cup of olive oil. Add in the meatballs, working in batches if you have to. Once browned on all sides (about 8 minutes), remove from the pan.  Repeat this process until all the meatballs are cooked and removed from the pan. This oil has great flavor but you will need to remove half of it from the pan or else the soup will be too greasy. Also, try to strain out most of the remaining brown bits from the pan.

 

Next, add in the onion, carrots and celery and cook on a low flame for about 10 minutes or until they become soft. Season with salt and the black pepper. Stir the mixture and cook for about 2 more minutes. Add the meatballs back in and then add in the broth. Raise the temperature to low/medium and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 30 minutes, making sure the veggies are cooked. Add the spinach and cook a few minutes longer, until the spinach wilts. Taste for seasoning and add salt or pepper if needed.

 

When there are about 15 minutes of cooking time left, cook your pasta and drain and put in a bowl.  You can add a small amount of olive oil to the pasta so that it does not stick together. I don’t like to cook the pasta in the soup because I find it becomes too soft. Serve the soup with the pasta and top with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

 

Serves 7.

Beef, Tomato and Acini di Pepe Soup

A few years ago, my oldest sister, Caterina, sent me a recipe for Beef, Tomato and Acini di Pepe Soup. She told me it was one of her family's favorites. I never got around to making it until yesterday, and realized I have really been missing out! Most of the soup recipes I make use either chicken or sausage. This is the first one I've made with ground beef. My sister makes it in a slow cooker, but I made it on the stove. I am only including the stove top directions below, but the link above also has slow cooker and instant pot directions. I used petite diced tomatoes and added a teaspoon of coarse black pepper to the soup, but otherwise I followed the directions. This soup was very easy to make, and tasted delicious! Just remember to plan ahead a little bit since it needs to simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours before adding the pasta.

I was able to fit one recipe in a 4-quart pot. If you have a larger family, you will probably need more than one recipe. My husband and I were the only ones that ate it, and I had two bowls leftover. I will definitely be making this recipe again soon!

Beef, Tomato and Acini di Pepe Soup

Recipe Courtesy Skinnytaste.com

1 pound 90% lean ground beef

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon coarse black pepper

½ cup diced onion

½ cup diced celery

½ cup diced carrot

28-ounce can petite diced tomatoes

32 ounces beef stock

2 bay leaves

4 ounces (2/3 cup) small pasta, such as Acini di Pepe

Grated parmesan cheese, optional

In a large pot or Dutch oven, sauté the beef, salt, and pepper on high heat until browned, breaking the meat up into small bits. Add the onion, celery and carrots and sauté 3 to 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, stock and bay leaves; cover and cook on low until the beef and the vegetables are tender, about 1 to 1½ hours (you may need to add more broth or water if it evaporates too much). Add the pasta, stir and cook according to package directions.

Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash Soup is one of my favorite soups for this time of year. I have never actually made it, but my mom and sisters make this recipe of Giada's and it's delicious, so I wanted to share it.

A lot of my family members cannot have dairy (which is one reason they make this recipe over others - it does not have any heavy cream in it!), so instead of using butter they only use olive oil. They do not put sage in their soup, so I put that as optional. They also do not make the crostini that is included in Giada's recipe so I left that out. My mom added a few more carrots the last time she made this and I think it tasted the best out of all the batches of hers that I've had!

This soup is delicious by itself, but I also love to dip grilled cheese in it if I'm having it for lunch. Yum!

Butternut Squash Soup

Recipe Courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

2 Tablespoons butter, at room temperature

2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped into ½-inch pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

3½ pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into ¾-inch pieces (about 7 to 8 cups)

6 cups low-sodium chicken stock

¼ cup chopped fresh sage leaves (optional)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

In an 8-quart stockpot, add the butter and oil and melt together over medium-high heat. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Add the squash and the chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and add the sage. Continue to boil until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth and thick. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Keep the soup warm over low heat. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls.

Note: The cooked vegetable mixture can also be pureed (after cooling for about 5 minutes) by ladling, in batches, into a food processor or blender and blended until smooth.