It doesn’t have to be cold outside to get me cooking up delicious hearty soups for my friends and family. And my Italian Sausage and White Bean Soup is a perfect light dinner or lunch any time of year.
With all the fresh vegetables in the market, summertime is my favorite time to make this delicious Italian sausage and white bean soup. It’s the kind of soup that almost begs to have a piece of crusty bread dunked into it!
If you love hearty soups, make sure to try my Classic Minestrone.
Ingredients to make Italian Sausage and White Bean Soup
Let’s start by gathering the ingredients we need to make my Italian Sausage and White Bean Soup. In Chef Speak this is called the “Mise en Place” which translates to “Everything in its Place”.
Not only does setting your ingredients up ahead of time speed up the cooking process, but it also helps ensure you have everything you need to make the dish.
Do I have to use Chicken stock to make this soup?
No, you don’t. If you want to keep it completely vegetarian use vegetable stock. You can also use beef stock if you prefer a heartier beef flavor.
How to make Sausage and White Bean Soup
- Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a large pot and when the oil is hot add the diced carrots, celery and onion.
- Let the veggies cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring as needed.
- Add the diced zucchini, and green beans to the pot.
- Stir to mix the veggies in to the mixture and continue to cook for about 5 minutes.
- Remove the sausage from the casing and add it to the stock pot.
- Break apart the sausage meat and allow it to brown until cooked.
My soups almost always start with a mirepoix or as the Italians would call it a Soffritto, which is a diced combination of celery, onions and carrots.
Always starting your soup by allowing your vegetables to cook a bit before adding in any water, this process is called sweating down the vegetables.
- Add the chicken stock, and white beans to the pot.
- Mix the beans and bring the soup to a boil, then turn down the heat and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes.
- Add the pasta to the minestra .
- Mix the pasta in and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Add the spinach to the pot.
- Cook long enough for the spinach to wilt and the Italian sausage and white bean soup is ready.
Serve the soup with grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese, and a twist of freshly ground black pepper.
Do I have to use all of the ingredients to make this soup?
No, you don’t. Whatever I happen to have on hand can find its way into my soup pot. While I start most of my soups from fresh ingredients these days, there was a time that the soup served another purpose, and that was an outlet for leftovers and scraps.
Those were the soups that we loved and some were hard to duplicate because of what was used. I do still make about 50 percent of my soups that way, utilizing leftovers, but some soups just need to be started from scratch.
Creating soups that your family and friends will enjoy eating isn’t difficult. Use the ingredients that they like.
If you’re not fond of white beans leave them out. If you don’t want to use Italian sausage leave it out or replace it with chicken. It’s really that easy.
Wouldn’t your family love to sit down to a bowl of this delicious Italian sausage and white bean soup? I promise it will bring smiles to your table and requests for seconds!
More Recipes You’ll Love!
Italian Sausage and Bean Soup
Ingredients
- 3 carrots diced
- 1 small onion diced
- 4 stalks celery diced
- 1 cup green beans cut into ¾-1 inch pieces
- 1 green squash diced
- 2 cups chopped escarole or greens of your choice
- ½ lb sweet sausage
- 16 ounces cannellini beans one small can drained
- 1 cup uncooked soup size pasta ½ pound
- 4 cups chicken stock more if needed. (vegetable stock can be used)
- season with black pepper and sea salt to taste
Instructions
- in a small stock pot add a tablespoon of olive oil, the diced carrots, celery and onion. Allow them to cook for 5-7 minutes.
- Add the diced zucchini, and green beans and continue to cook for about 5 minutes
- Remove the sausage from the casing and add it to the stock pot, break apart the sausage and allow it to brown
- Add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and allow to simmer.
- Add the cannellini beans and continue to simmer for about 30 minutes.
- Add in the pasta and continue to simmer for another 10 minutes.
- add in the escarole and allow to wilt.
- serve with a sprinkle of grated cheese and crusty bread.
Keeley @ My Life on a Plate
I just bookmarked this soup. Thank you for your honesty about guest posting and giveaways. I don’t have a high-traffic blog, but I put 10+ hours a week into cooking, photographing and writing about my recipes, so there’s no way I’m going to sell myself out for a free sample of potato chips! I’ve been pressured by advertisers to do giveaways (and I gave in once). It ended up not being worth my time and the person who won my giveaway never contacted me to claim her prize. Lesson learned.
I get paid a good salary for my professional work, so why wouldn’t I expect to be compensated fairly for product endorsements on my blog. You are so, so right. When I think about what I’ve invested in buying my domain name, designing my blog, groceries, camera, lenses, etc. it made me realize that I don’t need random sponsors to validate me. You cracked me up with the free Kitchen Aid example, though!
I just did a giveaway on my blog, but I sponsored it myself. I’d rather purchase something of value and have complete control over the guidelines for the promotion than have some random company try to use me.
Glad I met you at the Philly Food Writers meeting this fall… you have a great blog!
Chef D
Thank you so much for validating my points! I’m not against give aways by any means, but they have to be ones that you want to do, not that you feel pressured in doing. I do prefer doing my own, but I do enjoy a relationship with Chobani and their feta company, that you will see on my blog from time to time. But anyone that thinks were here to just give away our services needs to rethink their strategy!
It was a pleasure meeting you as well, and I look forward to seeing you at the next meet up!
Happy Holidays!
Dennis
Brian @ A Thought For Food
Excellent words of wisdom on the guest post etiquette. I get those e-mails from strangers at least three times a week… I don’t know them, why would I ever be interested in that?
Liz
Fabulous soup…I love the combo of sausage, veggies and pasta!!! Weird to wake up to 50º mornings in December…but it will be cold again by Christmas. Thanks, as always, for your great advice on so many topics…I’ve been getting a lot more product offers…and try to only accept ones I’d really use. I am still honored you asked me to guest post for you…one of my first guest posts and a highlight of that year! Happy holidays, my friend!
Suzi
Wow, that soup certainly looks hearty and healthy. Thanks for the advise that answers some questions that have to mind. Happy Holidays!
deana@lostpastremembered
I was just reading in Saveur about a memory of escarole soup cooking on the stove for hours… I think l like this better… I like things green, not gray! Lovely soup.. have a great holiday!!!
Tina@flourtrader
This is a great post. I can see how early on, just having a company wanting to use your pictures or recipes can cause you to be excited and therefore blinded about the benefits to them vs you. Your statements here do get you to thinking properly on the issue.
Your soup does look vibrant and tasty. The best thing is that it has all the food groups in it, so it is perfectly complete.
Enjoy the season Chef!
Elin
Chef Dennis…this soup must taste awesome…bursting with flavors. Awww…now you have made me hungry just looking at it. Wish I could have something hot and flavorful as this soup ! Thank you so much for enlightening us with your write out on product reviews and giveaways. Merry Christmas to you and Lisa and have a wonderful time this Christmas. I can imagine all the christmas spread on your table during this festive occasion :))
Cheers,
Elin
Amelia
Hi Chef Dennis, love your site with so many wonderful, mouth watering recipes.
The soup looks so delicious and appetizing, nice presentation too.
Have a nice day.
Amrita
Lovely recipe for a basic soup! I can see so many ways of customizing this with whatever’s in the pantry and refrigerator. I learnt something new – the soffritto – I’ve just started cooking with this trio and am glad to know the official terms for them. Great post!
Boulder Locavore
*wink* (there is probably some punctuation emoticon for that but I’m not cool enough for emoticons).
Love the soup. I’m suffering sucrose poisoning at this point in the season (made Latkes and Roasted Applesauce tonight as a nod to Hanukah starting and have never been happier to not eat sugar) and this soup looks a perfect antecdote. What a beautiful lunch you prepared! I love simple, straight forward food like this.
Thanks for the effort, energy and passion you put into your blog Dennis. Your genuine spirit is clear in every post.
Christie
Hi Dennis,
I love your site for the fabulous recipes, but also the great advice. I’m sure you will help more than a few newbees avoid some of the pitfalls of this blogging world. I for one, really appreciate it. Stay warm, I’m up in Calgary, Canada we’re born wearing toques:)
Gerry @Foodness Gracious
Great info once again Chef D. It comes at a relevant time for me as just the other day I left a comment on a new blog I had found. The owner emailed me back thanking me for my comment and also commenting on my blog, all very pleasant so far but today she asked if I would like to guest post for her. I only just met her and I know this sounds like first date stuff but I agree with you about taking time to build relationships. Hmm dont know what I’ll do….
Take care..
Brooks at Cakewalker
Chef, a glorious soup from start to finish! And yes, it does beg for hunk of bread to dunk with. Thank you for sharing this recipe and ACD. I saw the same tweet and had to wonder about the Pandora’s box the tweeter had opened. Well my friend, you have yourself set up nicely for the wintry cold season to come. Keep it merry & bright
Angela
Sadly, I needed to read this a week ago 🙂 Great post, thanks for the insights. I know better for next time.
Ann
Delicious soup and terrific information! I agree with you regarding guest posting…..it should be folks you have a relationship with and you should always put your best work out there! Thanks again, Dennis! You’re awesome!