Zuppa Toscana Recipe

Skip takeout and make Olive Garden right in your kitchen with my Zuppa Toscana! Savory sausage, salty bacon, & creamy broth whip up in just an hour!

Course Soup

Cuisine Italian

Keyword How Do I Make Zuppa Toscana, How To make Zuppa Toscana, Zuppa Toscana, Zuppa Toscana Recipe

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 40

Total Time 1

Servings people

Calories 1000kcal

Author Kathleen

Ingredients

2 pounds Italian sausage
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
10 ounces bacon chopped
1 1/2 cups yellow onion diced
1 rounded tablespoon garlic finely chopped
32 ounces chicken broth
4 large or 6 medium russet potatoes peeled and diced
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 (6-ounce) bag fresh baby spinach leaves coarsely chopped

Instructions

Remove sausage (2 pounds) from casing and saute with red pepper flakes (1/2 teaspoon) and fennel seeds (1/4 teaspoon) in a large Dutch oven until it's browned and no longer pink. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate.
Add the chopped bacon (10 ounces) to the same undrained Dutch oven and cook on medium, stirring often until the bacon is cooked. Drain the Dutch oven, leaving 2 generous tablespoonfuls of the drippings in the pan.
Add onion (1 1/2 cups) to the pan and saute on medium-low for about 5 minutes or until it begins to soften. Add the garlic (1 rounded tablespoon), lower the heat to low, and continue to saute for another 2-3 minutes.
Add the chicken broth (32 ounces) and potatoes (4 large or 6 medium) to the onions and garlic and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Add the cream (1 cup) and cooked sausage and simmer on medium heat until heated through. Stir in the spinach (6 ounces), add salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Notes

Prep- To save a bit of time overall, I chop the onion and mince the garlic while the sausage is browning. Then, I peel and cut the potatoes while I’m cooking the bacon. Every little bit of time savings helps in my busy day! The recipe is straightforward enough.
1. Brown the sausage in a Dutch oven, then set it aside when it’s browned. Add the bacon to the undrained Dutch oven and cook it.
2. Drain all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the pan add the onions and garlic along to the cooked bacon and saute them until they are soft and the onions are translucent. Dig down to the bottom of the pan while the veggies are cooking and scrape up any of the brown bits on the bottom of the Dutch oven. Those precious bits will give the soup lots of flavor!
3. Add the chicken broth and potatoes and simmer them until their fork is tender, then add the cream and spinach. Now you have a bowl of yum that just might knock your socks off!!!
The Veggies: Spinach or Kale– The Zuppa Toscana recipe served at the Olive Garden has kale in it. My family prefers the taste and texture of spinach so that’s, of course, what I use.
- If you want to use kale, I suggest you cook it longer than I do the spinach. I’d add it to the soup after the potatoes have cooked for about 10 minutes.
- Spinach is a lot more tender than kale and is also delicious eaten raw. In this recipe, the spinach is coarsely chopped and just heated up, but not cooked.
- If you want the spinach cooked more, just add it any time after you add the cream to the soup.
Potatoes– I use russet potatoes. You can use red potatoes or Yukon gold if you’d prefer.
- To peel, or not to peel…
- I peel, but you certainly don’t need to. I peel my potatoes because I don’t like how the soup looks when the peel separates from the potato after they’re cooked. Leaving the skins on the potatoes is certainly easier and a lot healthier for you!
- I like to cut the potatoes into fairly large chunks. As they simmer, they break down a bit. I like to keep the rustic feel of this soup by keeping the pieces about 1/2 inch chunks.
The Sausage - You can use sweet or spicy Italian sausage.
- I used sweet with 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes. My hubby doesn’t like much of any spicy heat so I have to keep the heat down. If you like things with more heat this recipe is easy to adjust to suit your taste.
- Use spicy sausage and add more red pepper flakes to taste. If you use spicy sausage instead of the mild, your broth will take on an orange hue.
- It’s the spices that are used in making the spicy version of sausage mixed with the chicken broth and cream and give it a bit of color.

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