Spicy Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup

Ingredients

• .5 lbs spicy italian sausage

  • Substitute: you can use mild Italian sausage if you prefer or can’t find spicy. If you want the soup to be spicy but can’t find spicy sausage, add chili flakes

• 1 bunch of lacitano kale

• 1 15 oz can of white beans, or ~2 cups

• ~4 cups of chicken stock (preferably homemade, but otherwise no or low sodium storebought stock will work)

• ~1 cup water

  • Note: you want roughly 5 cups of liquid, it’s okay if your ratio of stock to water is a little different, you can adjust by adding more salt

• Olive oil

• Salt to taste

• Optional: lemon, dill or parsley

~2-3 servings

Note: soups are very adaptable, so the quantities of every ingredient are flexible depending on what you have and what you like

Method

• Pour a small amount of olive oil into your pot and add the sausage on a medium-high heat

  • Note: if you are using sausage in the casing, remove it from the casing first

  • Note: if you were not able to find spicy sausage but still want a kick, add chili flakes to the olive oil and sausage

• Break apart your sausage into crumbles

• Let the sausage sit without stirring or agitating it so that it can brown and form a crust

• Once the sausage is fully cooked, add a small amount of liquid (doesn’t matter whether it’s stock or water) and deglaze the pan

  • Deglazing means pouring liquid into a pan to help get all the brown bits off the bottom. After pouring liquid in, you’ll use your spoon to scrape all those browned, carmelized bits from the bottom which have a ton of flavor (it’s also an easy way to clean the pan while you cook)

• Once you’ve scraped all the brown bits from the bottom, add the remaining ~5 cups of liquid

• Let the broth simmer for about 10-15 min, longer if you have time

  • This step isn’t essential, if you’re in a rush you can move through this, but it will help intensify the flavor of the broth immensely

• Taste your broth and add salt accordingly

• Rinse your white beans so that all of the liquid from the can is washed off of them, then add to soup

• Let simmer for another 5-15 min so that beans absorb the flavor of the broth and warm through

• De-stem 1/2 to 1 full bunch of lacitano kale and roughly chop

  • Tip: always remove kale from it’s stem (or ‘rib’), which is fibrous and tough to eat

• Off the heat, add the kale to the soup and stir in so kale can cook

• [Optional] Add zest from one lemon directly to broth (saving some for garnish)

• [Optional] Top with dill and/or parsley, lemon zest, and olive oil