Italian Sausage White Bean Soup

Italian sausage white bean soup gets a lot of flavor out of one pot in about an hour. The sausage does most of the work: brown it well, soften the onion, carrot and celery in the fat it leaves behind, then simmer everything with cannellini beans, stock and a Parmesan rind until the broth turns silky. A few handfuls of kale go in at the end.

It is a forgiving soup. Use whichever white beans you have, swap spinach for kale, and put in the tomatoes or leave them out. The two steps that matter are browning the sausage properly at the start and mashing a cup of the beans near the end, which thickens the broth without any flour or cream.

At a glance: serves 6. Prep 15 minutes, cook about 45 minutes, total about 1 hour.

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PP Pork Italian Sausage, Ground

This recipe uses 1 pound of ground Italian pork sausage, which seasons the whole pot.

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Asked for the things he says over and over on the farm, Gray Shipley, who runs it, gave a short list. This was one of them:

“Always do things the right way.”

Gray Shipley

He meant it as a rule for the farm, not a note about soup. In a pot like this one, though, the right way mostly means patience: let the sausage brown instead of steaming it gray, give the vegetables their full eight minutes, and let the beans simmer long enough to flavor the broth.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground Italian pork sausage
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 celery ribs, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes (optional)
• 1 Parmesan rind, about 2 inches (optional)
• 1 bunch lacinato kale, stems removed, leaves chopped (about 5 cups), or 5 ounces baby spinach
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Grated Parmesan and crusty bread, to serve

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and break it into small pieces with a wooden spoon. Cook, stirring now and then, until well browned with no pink left, 6 to 8 minutes. A thermometer in a thick clump should read 160 degrees F.
2. Lift the sausage onto a plate with a slotted spoon. Leave about 2 tablespoons of fat in the pot and pour off the rest.
3. Lower the heat to medium. Add the onion, carrots, celery and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring and scraping up the browned bits, until the vegetables are soft, about 8 minutes.
4. Stir in the garlic, red pepper flakes and rosemary and cook for 1 minute, until fragrant.
5. Pour in the stock and scrape the bottom of the pot. Add the beans, the tomatoes with their juice if you are using them, the Parmesan rind and the sausage. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, partly covered, for 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Scoop out about 1 cup of beans with a little of the broth, mash them with a fork, and stir them back in to thicken the soup.
7. Add the kale and simmer for 5 to 8 minutes, until tender. If you are using spinach, stir it in and cook for just 1 to 2 minutes, until wilted.
8. Fish out the rosemary stem and what is left of the Parmesan rind. Taste, season with salt and pepper, and serve hot with grated Parmesan and bread.

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Italian sausage soup: why the sausage goes in first

Browning the sausage is where most of the flavor in this soup comes from. The meat caramelizes, the fat renders out, and the bottom of the pot picks up a brown crust that the vegetables and stock lift off later. Crowd the pot or stir constantly and the sausage steams instead, so spread it out and leave it alone for a minute or two between stirs.

Italian sausage usually comes seasoned with garlic, pepper and often fennel, and all of that ends up in the broth. Sausages vary in salt and seasoning, so taste before you add salt, and do it at the end. If you only have links, slit the casings and squeeze the meat out; it cooks the same way. The guides below explain how Italian sausage differs from chorizo and how the other pork sausages cook.

Sausage and white beans: which beans to use

Cannellini beans are large, creamy and hold their shape, which is why they are the usual choice. Great Northern beans are a little smaller and firmer and work just as well. Navy beans are smaller still and break down more, giving a thicker, more rustic soup. Rinse canned beans to get rid of the starchy liquid, which can make the broth taste flat and cloudy.

To use dried beans, soak 1 1/2 cups overnight, then simmer them in fresh water until tender, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours, before adding them in step 5. That replaces both cans. Whichever beans you use, the mashing step matters: a cup of crushed beans turns a thin broth into one that coats the spoon.

Kale, spinach and the Parmesan rind

Lacinato kale, the dark, flat-leaved kind, keeps some texture even after a day in the fridge. Curly kale works too; chop it a little smaller. Spinach wilts in a minute and is best added just before serving. If you plan to freeze part of the soup, keep that portion's greens out and add fresh ones when you reheat it.

The Parmesan rind is optional, but it is the reason some versions of this soup taste so round and savory. It softens in the broth and gives up its flavor without melting away. Keep rinds in a bag in the freezer and drop one in whenever you make soup. Pull it out before serving.

Making it ahead, freezing and reheating

This soup is good the day it is made and better the next, once the beans have soaked up the broth. They keep soaking, so add a splash of stock or water when you reheat it. Cool leftovers quickly in shallow containers and refrigerate them promptly.

To freeze, ladle the cooled soup into containers, leaving an inch of room at the top, and label them. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then reheat on the stove over medium heat, stirring now and then, until it bubbles and reaches 165 degrees F. For a beef soup in the same spirit, see the beef and barley soup below.

Food safety

USDA FSIS lists 160 degrees F as the safe minimum internal temperature for ground meats, which includes ground sausage. Check it with an instant-read thermometer in a thick clump of sausage before it comes out of the pot in step 2. Reheat leftovers to 165 degrees F. See the FSIS Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.