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Sausage & kale soup


I'm on a bit of a soup kick lately and this sausage and kale soup is the latest big pot of comfort to come out of my kitchen. When it comes to soup, I don't do it watery. I like it chunky and I like it chock full of tasty ingredients. This is a soup for people who don't really like soup. 

It's all about big flavour and texture here. It starts with plenty of onion and garlic in the pan, followed by seasoned sausage meat, chicken broth, dark green vitamin-rich kale, and tender dots of peperini pasta. There's mega flavour in a bowl of this.


Any kind of ground sausage meat will do in this soup. I used three large cajun pork sausages, splitting them lengthwise with a knife and peeling off the casings.


Kale is a vegetable I'd like to start putting in my grocery cart more often. It's super nutritious, versatile, and tastes a lot like broccoli. Peperini pasta makes this soup a real hungry man's dinner, adding texture and bulk.



Here's how I made it:

splash olive oil
2/3 cup onion, diced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
300 g sausage meat (casings removed)
4 cups chicken broth
6 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups kale, roughly chopped
3/4 cup peperini pasta

I heated the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. I added the onion and garlic to the oil and cooked for a couple minutes, just until soft. The sausage meat went in next, and I used a wooden spoon to break it up into smallish pieces while it browned. Once the sausage was browned, I added the chicken broth, water, salt, and kale and increased the heat to high to bring the soup to a boil. Once bubbling, I added the peperini and lowered the heat to low, simmering the soup, covered, for 30 minutes.


That is one handsome soup right there! Good looking AND full of personality. I couldn't wait to get a spoon into a big bowl of this.


What kinds of soups are favourites in your kitchen? Do you have any non soup eaters in your family? Share your own soup recipes and links in the comments and tell me what's happening in your soup pot this week.