Yesterday afternoon my son was doing his best impression of a barnacle, stuck to me in an emotional rebound reaction to going back to school from Winter Break. Getting anything done was challenging.
My husband walked in, back from his daily round of corporate servitude, our pre-teen daughter trailing in behind him.
“How was school?” I asked her.
“Is there anything to eat?” she responded.
And because earlier in the day I had thrown together this soup, I could say, “Of course there is, sweetie,” instead of “What do I look like, your personal short order chef?”
Mom level 10: Activate. All thanks to this soup.
Click here for the printable recipe, or follow along for the step-by-step visual instructions.
Step-by-Step White Bean, Sausage and Kale Soup
You will need:
- Some Italian sausage: Carnivore? See Note. Vegetarian? Substitute portabella mushrooms, or leave out completely.
- Flavor Building Veg: a yellow onion, some garlic and a carrot.
- Feature Veg: wonderful Cavolo Nero kale.
- Light stock: chicken or pork. Veg is fine too, if you are meat-free.
- White wine: goes without saying.
- Cooked white beans: you want the little cannellini or similar type for this. You can cook them ahead of time, or use canned beans.
- Seasoning: thyme, salt, pepper, and – if you are feeling fancy – a good quality olive oil and some parmesan cheese.
Sausage Note: You can use mild Italian or spicy Italian, chicken or pork or turkey, in casing or loose. Whatever. It doesn’t matter, so long as your sausage is uncooked. What you don’t want is a pre-cooked sausage you can just heat-and-eat. If your sausage doesn’t feel squidgy when you poke it, it’s the wrong type. The Yuppie Hippie market had bulk, uncased mild chicken Italian sausage, so that’s what I used.
Saute your sausage. Get it nice and brown, but don’t burn it.
Add your flavor builder veggies to the pot. Just throw them right in there with your sausage. Cook them till they are nice and soft.
Next, add your liquids. In goes the stock and vino. While we are at it, toss your dried thyme in there so it has time to hydrate and soften. Keep the heat moderate and get everything bubbly together.
Pop your sliced up kale into the soup. It will look like a lot initially, but you know how greens are. It’ll shrink down in no time. Cook the kale until it’s pretty tender. (Kale never gets tender, tender. It’s not codependent. This is one of the lovely qualities of kale.)
Add the cooked white beans. I had a pot of white beans going on the back of the stove anyway, so that’s what I used but – to reiterate – canned beans are totally fine here. Just drain them well and rinse all that goopy snot-textured bean-gel off of ’em before you add them to your soup.
Gently, gently stir those lovely delicate beans into the soup, then season everything with salt and pepper like you mean it.
This soup is classic and delicious and needs no messing with, but if you really want the absolute best experience, it’s all about the garnishing.
Dish up bowls of the hot soup, then drizzle each with some good quality olive oil, like the kind your friend who travels to Napa and Tuscany would bring you back as a thank you gift after you picked up her mail for a week.
Now top each bowl with a few shavings of parmesan. Skip the green can of cheese salt and take these right off a chunky wedge of fancy-pants cheese with a potato peeler. A few curls of good parm do a lot in almost every situation.
Enjoy with a glass of white wine. You had to open a bottle to make the soup, so you might as well.
Printable White Bean, Sausage and Cavolo Nero Soup Recipe
White Bean, Sausage and Cavolo Nero Kale Soup
Prep
Cook
Total
Yield 4 to 6
A simple and delicious winter soup.
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb bulk Italian sausage, or about 3 mild Italian sausages, casings removed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, peeled and medium diced
- 1 large carrot, peeled and medium diced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 quart chicken or pork stock
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 1 tsp dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh minced thyme
- 2 bunches Cavolo Nero kale, rinsed, tough stems removed, and finely chopped
- 2 cups cooked (or canned) cannellini or other small, white beans
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Best quality olive oil, to garnish (optional)
- Parmesan cheese, to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- In a large pot set over medium-high heat, warm the oil until it shimmers. Crumble the sausage meat into the oil, and cook, stirring frequently, until sausage is browned.
- Add the onions, carrot and garlic to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent and the vegetables are tender.
- Add to the chicken or pork stock, wine, and dried thyme to the pot. Bring everything to a simmer, then add the kale to the pot.
- Adjust heat to medium-low maintain a very gentle simmer, cover pot, and cook until all the vegetables are quite tender, about 15 minutes.
- Add the cooked cannellini beans to the soup, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Gently simmer for a final 10 to 15 minutes, to allow the flavors to fully meld. Adjust final seasonings with additional salt if needed.
- Serve the soup hot, topped with a drizzle of good olive oil and a few shavings of Parmesan.
Courses Soup
“Mom level 10: Activate.” Aww yea! The soup looks pretty tasty too.
Thanks!
I like to pressure can the meat/beans/broth and add fresh or frozen greens at serving time. Heat and eat!
Great idea!
Glad to see you blogging again!
Thank you Lorin. 🙂
Erica, I stumbled on your site by accident years ago and I am reminded almost every post of why I love it; humour, practicality and reality combined at last! Thanks for making my days!
Thank you Lauren! What a lovely compliment!
Wonderful recipe!
I have made a parmesan broth with white bean and kale soup a few times and this reminds me of a bulked up version of it.
You have taught me an immense amount about preserving, cooking, gardening, and life. Your book by the way, absolutely wonderful. I made several of the recipes and have started on some of the home care DIY as well. This book is putting together my ‘missing links’ for having a healthy, productive, and wonderful home.
Incredibly grateful for what you do, and am so glad I could give a little support with purchasing the book.
Thank you so much for this comment and for your support. I’m glad you like the book! I love adding parm to broth as well – I keep all my parm rinds in the freezer and just pop them into whatever stock I’m making. They add such great flavor.
I recently discovered the miracle of parmesan rinds, but I have a question…where do I find them when I don’t have enough? (Clearly I need to eat more parmesan, but I’m just one person!) My chef friend said “Your local cheese counter” and I laughed. Here in Mount Vernon, there IS no local cheese counter, not even at our totally awesome co-op. So…where?
PS – I’m so glad to see you’re back…I missed you so much! 🙂
Thank you Erica for sending this recipe today.
There are some spicy Italian sausages in the freezer that need to be used soon. The kale in the back garden has survived our recent cold spell – so dinner is now planned.
Yay!
Perfect! Hope you love it like I do. 🙂
This looks like an easy and comforting soup for these cold dreary days we are having. Thanks! And I am glad to see you back! Been missing you! 🙂
Hope this doesn’t sound like a stupid question, but do you make pork stock the same way you make chicken stock (except with pork bones, obviously)…I mean same veggies and seasonings?
Not stupid – yes I do my pork stock pretty much like chicken. Pork stock is very light and mild – almost sweet – and a good stand in for chicken stock. But because the bones are bigger you’ll need to simmer them for longer. I tend to let me stock go for hours; with pork I’d simmer at least 6 hours, and up to 24 depending on what my day looked like. But it’s the same basic idea: a couple carrots, a few onions, maybe some celery and peppercorns. 🙂
Looks delicious! I grew up in a soup-eating family but my husband apparently did not. When I serve a lovely soup and some tasty carb alongside he’ll eat it and be back in the kitchen in half an hour looking for ‘dinner’. Soup is apparently merely an appetizer. 😉 Thank you for the lovely recipe!
Oh that looks good. I have a husband like Molly’s above, but I might make this anyway. Thanks for sharing!
Wow…I make a soup almost identical to this and it is so good….even serve in white Corelle bowls very similar …thats too funny… its one of my favs…going to try this…I love your site…I learn o much from you and you have so many great ideas….thank you …