So, I bet some of you are wondering…. what is Zuppa Toscana soup?  It’s such a strange name, obviously not from the American language.  Personally, I was introduced to Zuppa Toscana soup at The Olive Garden.  It is such an amazing tasting soup, I decided to come home and figure out just how to make it, so we can eat it more often.

On this particular day, my family ate the pot up so quickly, that I declared, “Next time, I’m tripling this recipe!”  Ha!  I’d say they liked it!

What is Zuppa Toscana Soup?

Zuppa Toscana literally means Soup in the style of Tuscany (Italy).  It’s a soup made with Italian sausages, potatoes, chicken broth, veggies and spices.  Of course, we add some heavy cream to it as well, to make it extra creamy and some kale to make it even better for you.  Don’t worry though, the kale doesn’t affect the taste for the worse…it totally enhances the wonderful flavors!

For us, we don’t do spice well, since we still have little kids living at home who don’t like spicy foods.  I always buy the mild Italian sausage links and take off the “skins” (if that’s what you call them) and fry them up in my skillet that way.  I cut them up once they start getting cooked and just put chunks of the chopped up sausage links in our soup.

Zuppa Toscana Soup Recipe, Olive Garden Style

Ingredients:

1 lb ground hot Italian Sausage (or mild if you don’t want spice)
1 onion, diced
4 potatoes, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
32 oz chicken broth
2 cups kale, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp flour
Salt & pepper to taste
Pinch of red pepper flakes, optional

Directions:

1. Brown sausage
2. While sausage cooks, dice onion, potatoes & kale
3. Put sausage, onions, potatoes, garlic, chicken broth, salt, pepper & red pepper flakes into slow cooker
4. Cook on low 5-6 hours or high 3-4 hours
5. Before serving, whisk together cream & flour. Pour into slow cooker, add chopped kale & stir well
6. Let cook another 15 minutes.

Freezer Bag Instructions:

Recently, this soup was featured in my monthly Freezer to Slow Cooker Meal Plan.  You can still sign up for it here.

1. Brown sausage
2. While sausage cooks, dice onion
3. Put sausage, onion, garlic, chicken broth, salt, pepper & red pepper flakes into a gallon size freezer safe bag
4. Chop Kale and store separately in refrigerator. You can freeze this bag if it will be a while before you eat it, just label it to be added to this soup at the end.
5. Label & lay bag flat in freezer
6. Get bag out of freezer the night before you plan to cook it
7. In the morning, place contents of bag into slow cooker
8. Dice potatoes & add to slow cooker
9. Cook on low 5-6 hours or high 3-4 hours
10. Before serving, whisk together cream & flour. Pour into slow cooker, add kale & stir well.

When you make this for the freezer, be sure to wait and add the potatoes on the day you plan to cook them.  If the potatoes aren’t fully covered in liquid they will turn black and just look gross in your soup.  In the photographs, you’ll notice that my kale is in the bag with the other soup ingredients.  I had forgotten that I was going to add it later.  The later you add the kale, the more green it will be.  I guess it just depends on how much time you’ll have on cooking day and if you care how green the kale is.  As you can see from my photos, mine was starting to turn a little brownish green, but it still tasted really good!

One thing that I love about freezer to slow cooker meals is that they are very forgiving.  If you add something to the bag that the recipe said to wait on, it’s probably going to be OK.