Italian sausage soup with vegetables and pasta is hearty, packed full of flavor, and good for you – especially when you make it with turkey or chicken Italian sausage.
Italian Sausage Soup is a go-to light dinner during cooler weather. Of course, we’ve added our signature “Southern” touch and you’ll love the fun twists.
A typical Italian Sausage Soup would have spinach, but we made ours with collard greens. Any greens that you would like or have on hand would be perfect. If you don’t know anything about cooking collard greens, here’s how to Cut and Clean Collard Greens.
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Cannelini beans are what you may expect in this soup, and they are good – no doubt about that. But, in keeping with our philosophy of “use whatever you have” we added baby lima beans to ours.
Another idea would be black-eyed peas. They would be great and you know we love them. Have you tried our black-eyed pea hummus? It’s healthy, scrumptious and will have everybody talking.
The Great Thing About Soup
We did write up a recipe for this soup, and if you follow it to the letter the results will be delicious. But, you don’t have to measure every ingredient, or even use the exact ingredients that we did.
If we’re honest, in typical Southern food fashion we usually make our soup more by adding “handfuls” of this and that.
Besides the different bean and greens options mentioned above you can give these ideas a try, or get creative and use what your family loves and what you have in your pantry and freezer/fridge.
- Italian sausage can be made from pork, chicken or turkey. We like it spicy, but the sweet kind is great too. Using chicken or turkey sausage keeps your soup healthier.
- Ditalini is the pasta you see in these photos, but we’ve made the same soup with spaghetti noodles, broken into short pieces. Any pasta you choose will be perfect!
- Parmesan was our cheese of choice, but any hard cheese is just fine.
- Have fresh tomatoes? By all means use them instead of canned tomatoes
Cheese Rind Gives Soups a Rich, Nutty Edge
Did y’all know about this? When you get to the end of a wedge of hard cheese, you should save those rinds. Whether it’s parmesan, asiago or romano you can toss the rinds in a baggie and freeze them.
Then, whenever you are cooking a sauce or soup with an Italian edge throw them in the pot. They’ll flavor the broth or sauce like nothing else can.
Before serving I fish out the pieces of rind, but by that time there’s not much left. That mellow cheesy goodness is infused into your soup or sauce.
These breads would be so good with your Italian Sausage Soup:
- Skillet Focaccia Bread with Herbs and Parmesan (our #1 choice)
- Homemade Crescent Rolls (not from a can)
- Asiago Cheese & Black Pepper Biscuits
- Sweet Potato Biscuits
Italian Sausage Soup with Vegetables and Pasta
Ingredients
- 3 links Italian sausage pork, turkey or chicken (see note below)
- 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- ½ medium onion chopped
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic about 1 clove
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¾ cup carrot slices
- 3 cups chicken stock approximately
- ⅔ cup beans or peas cannelini, lima beans or blackeyed peas
- 14.5 ounce canned tomatoes diced
- 1.5 cup collard greens frozen, can use other greens
- ⅔ cup pasta
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium heat in dutch oven.
- Remove sausage from casings, crumble and add to olive oil, along with chopped onions.
- Cook until sausage is done and onions are translucent.
- Add garlic and cook for about 1 minutes.
- Add carrots, Italian seasoning and enough stock to cover ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes.
- Add tomatoes, beans, greens and additional stock to cover all ingredients.Cook 10-15 minutes on medium low, or until beans are done and greens are tender.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, and pasta. Cook according to pasta package instructions.
- If desired, garnish with chopped parsley and/or shavings of hard cheese, such as parmesan.
Notes
Nutrition
Made with turkey sausage this soup is hearty, but healthy. If you love Southern foods, but try to keep yours healthy too, be sure to check out our review of Skinny Southern. It’s got lots of great ideas.
Love soup? More recipes to try!
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Tayler Ross says
This soup has everything that I could ever want! I can’t wait to try it!
Pam says
Thanks so much, Tayler!
Neli Howard says
Oh my…this Italian Sausage and Vegetable Soup sounds so delicious and so comforting. Definitely my kind of soup to make and enjoy after a long day! thanks for sharing. 🙂
Pam says
Thanks Neli!
Katie says
This looks so incredibly good! I love using Italian sausage in recipes. It’s so full of flavor! Put it in a soup and it will give great taste to all of the other ingredients!
Pam says
We agree. Thanks so much, Katie!
Erica Schwarz says
What a wonderful recipe, this soup looks delicious. I like ditalini pasta, and I love your advice to use the cheese rind. Must be so flavorful.
Pam says
It really is a great trick. Thanks, Erica.
[email protected] says
Winters and soup make the best pair! Love how handy this one is.
Pam says
Exactly! Thanks, Lola!
Colleen says
This soup looks absolutely yummy. I love everything about it and can’t wait to make it!
Pam says
Hope you love it, too. Thank you Colleen!
Amy | The Cook Report says
This looks like my ultimate comfort food, I love the pasta in there, makes it so filling!
Pam says
It really is quite hearty. Thanks, Amy!
VERONICA HAYES says
Italian Sausage now comes loose, so how much would equal 3 links? I figure why go through all of the trouble to remove casings from links, whe you can just buy it “bulk” style?
Pam says
I guess that’s true, Veronica. I like to use turkey sausage, and my market only carries it in links. For the amount, I would say about 1/2-2/3 lbs. But this is a versatile recipe, and you can make it more or less meaty as you prefer.
Betty says
How much soup does this make?
Pam says
Betty, It makes a good dutch oven of soup – about 10-12 servings. If you served big, deep bowls of it maybe only 8 bowls, but we usually go with a more medium sized bowl