Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup (Zuppa Toscana Style)
Spicy sausage browned in bacon fat, thin-sliced potatoes and kale in a creamy, peppery broth, with crispy bacon crumbled on top for crunch.
Ingredients
- 4 slices bacon (about 35 g once cooked)
- 1 lb (450 g) hot or mild Italian sausage, casings removed
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 1/2 lb (680 g) russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 6 cups (1.4 L) low-sodium chicken broth
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1/4 tsp salt (the bacon and sausage are salty)
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 bunch kale (about 6 cups, 140 g), stems removed, leaves chopped
- 1 cup (240 ml) half-and-half
- 1/4 cup (25 g) grated Parmesan, to serve
Method
- Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain on paper towels, crumble and set aside for the topping. Pour off all but 1 tbsp of the fat.
- Brown the sausage with the onion in the bacon fat over medium-high heat, breaking it into bite-size crumbles, about 8 minutes. Spoon off any extra fat. Worth it: you get golden, smoky crumbles instead of gray ones, plus a crispy topping.
- Put the potatoes and garlic in the slow cooker and add the sausage. Pour in the broth and add the red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender.
- Last 30 min: turn to HIGH, stir in the kale and half-and-half, cover and cook 20 to 30 minutes, until the kale is tender.
Freezer: Freeze before the kale and half-and-half go in, up to 3 months. The potatoes soften a little after freezing.
- Wake it up
- Top each bowl with the crispy bacon, Parmesan and an extra pinch of red pepper flakes. A squeeze of lemon cuts the richness nicely.
- Next day
- Lift the sausage, potatoes and kale out of leftovers with a slotted spoon and crisp them in a hot skillet. Make 4 wells, crack in 4 eggs, cover and cook until the whites set for a sausage and potato hash.
- Half batch
- Halve everything and use a 3- to 4-quart cooker.
- Swap
- Lighter: use chicken or turkey Italian sausage, and 1 cup 2% milk whisked with 1 tbsp cornstarch in place of the half-and-half.
- Serve with
- Easy Beer Bread
Estimated nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 454
- Protein
- 22.8 g
- Fiber
- 3.4 g
- Sodium
- 822 mg
- Carbs
- 29.7 g
- Fat
- 28 g
- Sat. fat
- 11.1 g
This recipe is one of 100 in Easy Slow Cooker Soups and Stews Cookbook, each with a color photo and nutrition facts per serving.
View on AmazonWhat makes this taste like zuppa toscana?
Three things carry the flavor. The first is the fat: bacon cooked first, then the sausage and onion browned in that same bacon fat, so every bite of meat picks up a smoky edge instead of tasting merely fried. The second is the broth itself, built from chicken broth, red pepper flakes and black pepper, which turns peppery rather than plain once the potatoes and sausage have simmered in it for hours. The third is the dairy at the end: half-and-half stirred in during the last stretch of cooking, which rounds out the heat and ties the smoky sausage to the broth instead of leaving them as two separate things floating next to each other. Crumbled bacon and grated Parmesan on top, stirred in right before serving, bring back the crunch and the salt that hours in a slow cooker soften out of everything else in the pot.
Why brown the sausage and bacon first?
This is the one stovetop step, and it earns its place. A slow cooker holds a gentle, moist heat for hours, which is exactly what potatoes and kale need, but it never gets hot enough to brown meat: sausage dropped in raw would simmer to a pale gray crumble with none of the toasted, smoky flavor that makes this soup recognizable. Crisping the bacon first does two jobs at once, rendering out fat to brown the sausage in and setting aside a crunchy topping for later. Browning the sausage and onion together in that fat for about 8 minutes caramelizes the meat's surface before the broth ever touches it, which is where most of the soup's flavor actually comes from. Skip this step and the soup still cooks through, but it tastes thinner and greasier rather than smoky and rich.
When does each ingredient go in?
Order matters here because the kale and dairy only need minutes, not hours:
- At the stovetop, first: bacon until crisp, then drained and crumbled aside for the topping.
- At the stovetop, next: sausage and onion browned in the bacon fat, about 8 minutes, broken into bite-size pieces.
- Into the slow cooker: potatoes, garlic, the browned sausage, chicken broth, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, cooked on LOW until the potatoes are tender.
- Last 30 minutes, on HIGH: kale and half-and-half stirred in, covered, until the kale is tender.
- At the table: crumbled bacon, grated Parmesan and an extra pinch of red pepper flakes over each bowl.
Holding the kale and dairy back until the very end keeps the kale from turning to mush and stops the half-and-half from separating over a long cook.
How do you wake it up before serving?
Spoon the crispy bacon over each bowl right before it goes to the table, along with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan, so both stay crunchy instead of softening in the hot broth. An extra pinch of red pepper flakes on top adds back some of the heat that mellows during a long simmer. A squeeze of lemon juice cuts through the richness of the half-and-half and bacon fat, which is worth doing if the soup tastes heavy rather than bright. Taste the broth before adding more salt: the bacon, sausage and Parmesan are all salty on their own, and the soup usually needs black pepper more than it needs salt by the time it reaches the table.
Can you freeze zuppa toscana?
Yes, with one rule about timing. Freeze the soup after the potatoes are tender but before the kale and half-and-half go in, for up to 3 months. Dairy added before freezing tends to separate and turn grainy once thawed, and kale frozen in broth loses its texture. When you want soup, thaw the base, reheat it, then stir in fresh kale and half-and-half and finish it the same way as the first time, 20 to 30 minutes on HIGH. The potatoes do soften a little more after a freeze and thaw, which is a small trade for being able to make this ahead.
What do you do with the leftovers?
Turn them into breakfast. Lift the sausage, potatoes and kale out of the leftover soup with a slotted spoon and crisp them in a hot skillet until they catch a little color. Make four wells in the mixture, crack an egg into each one, cover the skillet and cook until the whites set, for a sausage and potato hash with eggs baked right on top. This uses up a cup or two of soup that is not quite enough for a full bowl on its own, and it turns the same smoky sausage and potatoes into a completely different meal instead of a repeat of the same bowl the next night.
Smaller batch, a lighter version, and what to serve with it
For a smaller batch, halve every ingredient and use a 3- to 4-quart slow cooker instead of a 6-quart one. For a lighter version, swap in chicken or turkey Italian sausage for the pork, and replace the half-and-half with 1 cup of 2% milk whisked with a tablespoon of cornstarch, which thickens the broth without the extra fat. Easy Beer Bread is the side the book pairs this with, good for mopping up the peppery broth, though any warm crusty bread works.
This is one of 100 recipes in the Easy Slow Cooker Soups and Stews Cookbook, including Slow Cooker French Onion Soup, every one with a color photo, nutrition facts per serving and a freezer note.