Bean and Sausage Soup is both nutritious and simple to make. This hearty soup is made with two kinds of canned beans as well as smoked sausage and healthy vegetables. The leftovers are just as delicious, if not better.
Here's What You'll Need For This Recipe
The list of ingredients might seem long, but the soup comes together quickly.
- The Beans: I used two types of canned white beans - cannellini beans and chickpeas (or garbanzo beans).
- The Sausage: Smoked sausage provides an amazing flavor to this soup recipe.
- The Vegetables: This recipe is chocked full of healthy vegetables including onions, carrots, celery, garlic, petit diced tomatoes and fresh spinach.
- The Liquid: The petit diced tomatoes provided some liquid to this delicious soup. For the rest of the liquid, I used low sodium chicken broth.
- The Seasonings: For the seasonings, I used fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, dried oregano, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
The Prep
For the preparation, I sliced the sausage, diced the onions, carrots and celery, minced the garlic and tied the rosemary, thyme and oregano is a cheesecloth packet using kitchen twine.
I also drained and rinsed the canned beans.
I wanted the soup to be a bit creamy. Therefore, I puréed one of the drained cans of cannellini beans in the blender with some chicken broth.
Here's How I Made the Bean and Sausage Soup
- I started by cooking the sliced smoked sausage in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.
When the sausage was fully cooked, I removed it from the Dutch oven and drained it well. This included pressing the sausage between pieces of paper towel to remove as much of the grease as possible.
- When the sausage was cooked, I poured the grease from the Dutch oven but didn't wipe out the pan.
I added the onions, carrots and celery to the Dutch oven and sautéed them over medium heat for about 5 minutes. During this time, I scraped up the flavorful fond from the bottom of the Dutch oven.
- After five minutes, I added the garlic. I cooked the garlic for about 30 seconds, until it was fragrant.
- Next, I added the undrained petit diced tomatoes, chicken broth, cooked sausage and herb packet. I stirred to combine everything.
Once the mixture reached a boil, I reduced the heat to medium low, covered the Dutch oven and simmered the soup for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, I removed the lid from the Dutch oven. I added the drained and rinsed cannellini beans, chickpeas and cannellini bean purée.
I gave the mixture a stir, covered the Dutch oven and simmered the soup for another 20 minutes.
- I removed the lid from the Dutch oven and removed the herb packet. Then, I tasted the soup to see how much salt and pepper I needed to add. I ended up adding about a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper.
Finally, I added the spinach and cooked the mixture until the spinach was wilted. This took about 5 minutes.
I served the Bean and Sausage soup with a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top and some of my Southern Flaky Biscuits.
The soup was amazing. The vegetables were perfectly cooked, and the flavors totally complimented one another. Yum!
Frequently Asked Questions
As is, this soup is not vegetarian because of the sausage and chicken broth. However, you can omit the sausage or use a vegetarian sausage and substitute vegetable broth for a vegetarian variety.
Cannellini beans are a white bean with a creamy texture. They are large and oval in shape are sometimes referred to as white kidney beans.
Feel free to use whatever beans you have on hand such as great northern beans, pinto beans, navy beans, etc.
Rather than using spinach, you can use kale or Swiss chard. You can also omit the spinach.
This bean and sausage soup can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to three days. It can also be frozen and kept in the freezer for up to three months.
Other Delicious Soup Recipes
If you're a fan of healthy soup, you should try these amazing recipes:
Recipe
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Bean and Sausage Soup
Ingredients
- 1 pound smoked sausage, cut into slices (See Tip 1)
- 2 cups diced onions
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup diced celery
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 sprigs rosemary (See Tip 2)
- 2 sprigs thyme (See Tip 3)
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 14.5-ounce can petit diced tomatoes
- 2 quarts (8 cups) chicken broth, divided (See Tip 4)
- 2 15.5-ounce cans cannellini beans, rinsed well and drained
- 1 15.5-ounce can chickpeas or garbanzo beans, rinsed well and drained
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Cook sausage in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until fully cooked. Drain well.
- Pour grease from Dutch oven, but do not wipe down. Add onions, carrots and celery. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant.
- Tie the rosemary, thyme and oregano in a piece of cheesecloth secured with kitchen twine.
- Add Petit Diced Tomatoes, 6 ½ cups of the chicken broth, cooked sausage and herb packet to Dutch oven. Stir to combine ingredients. Cover Dutch oven and simmer the soup over medium-low heat for 30 minutes.
- While soup is cooking, purée one can of cannellini beans and remaining 1 ½ cups of chicken broth in a blender until smooth.
- After 30 minutes, add cannellini beans, chickpeas and puréed cannellini beans to soup. Cover and simmer for an additional 20 minutes over medium-low heat.
- Remove herd packet from soup. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add spinach and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes.
- Yield: 8 servings.
Tips/Notes
- My favorite smoked sausage is Conecuh sausage. However, feel free to use whatever smoked sausage is available in your area.
- Rather than fresh rosemary, you can use ¼ teaspoon of dried rosemary.
- Substitute ¼ teaspoon of dried thyme for the fresh thyme.
- I used low sodium chicken broth in this recipe but use whatever chicken broth you have on hand.
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