This easy one-pot version of Olive Garden’s delicious Zuppa Toscana soup is simple, quick to make and may be even better than the original!
Are you obsessed with Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana soup? Well, my husband is!
Unlimited soup, salad, breadsticks and wine used to be one of our favorite meals. Soup and salad with wine sounded like a nice healthy, girly meal to me, and the possibility of 20 bowls of Zuppa Toscana soup sounded like the perfect meal to him.
Then one day, I found a “copycat” Zuppa Toscana recipe on Pinterest. Big mistake. Huge!! Now that I make my version at home, I can’t remember the last time my husband took me to Olive Garden.
My husband and I actually like a lighter, heartier version of Zuppa Toscana soup. Those words don’t normally go together, but I leave out the cream, giving you have a lighter broth. Then, I add more tender, chewy kale without adding more broth. To me, the addition already makes it a heartier soup, but it also changes the ratio of ingredients to broth.
Now, we’re talking about 3 simple main ingredients here… Italian sausage, potatoes and kale. I don’t recommend any substitutions here. However, you can use any type of Italian sausage… pork, chicken, hot, mild, sweet, etc. I typically use mild or a combination of mild and sweet pork Italian sausage because of the kids.
Serve it with crusty regular or gluten-free bread, just like you would have at Olive Garden. Warm, hearty, healthy, easy and delicious!!!
Not your Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana Soup
Ingredients
- 2 pounds mild Italian sausage ground (can sub hot, sweet or a combination here)
- 2 yellow onions diced
- 6-8 cloves garlic minced
- 3 cartons chicken stock 32 oz each
- 6 cups yukon potatoes sliced 1/8"-1/4" thick
- 1 bunch kale curly or flat
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- shredded parmesan cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Wash and remove stems from kale and set aside.
- In a large pot over medium heat, crumble sausage and begin to brown. Cut onion and toss in with the sausage. Cook about 5 more minutes or until sausage is completely brown. When sausage is fully cooked, add minced garlic and cook an additional minute. Then, drain off excess fat.
- Return sausage and onions back to the pot. Turn the heat up to high and add chicken stock and salt. While the stock is heating, cut potatoes in half and slice with mandolin or knife. Add to pot and bring to a boil.
- Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook about 5 minutes.
- While potatoes cook, cut kale into bite-size pieces. Add kale a little at a time and stir into soup to wilt. Add pepper, cover and let stand 5 more minutes or until potatoes are tender.
- Turn off the heat to prevent overcooking potatoes and serve topped with optional shredded parmesan cheese.
Notes
- Leave nutrient dense skins on your potatoes. It adds to the heartiness of the soup.
- If you don't have a mandolin to slice your potatoes, just cut your potato into slices no bigger than a half inch thick.
- One bunch of kale varies in size from store to store. I say, put in whatever 'one bunch' means to your produce guy... unless he's very generous, and you think it might be too much for one pot of soup. I like him though!
- It's hard to chop a bunch of kale, but if you chop it several times from different angles, you will have good bite size pieces rather than large chunks.
- Overcooking thinly sliced potatoes with result in potatoes falling apart... It will still be delicious though!
