Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup

The perfect warming soup for a chilly day, Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup is just so simple — yet, so full of flavor!

Welcome to the November 6, 2016 edition of Sunday Scratchups: Your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery sales and generally affordable ingredients. This week spinach and smoked sausage are seasonally on sale, so let’s talk about this Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup recipe. I’ve been making and tweaking this one for years, and it’s the perfect filling & easy soup recipe for a cool fall day.

This might also be deemed “Go Cubs, Go” soup — since we enjoyed this particular batch while watching the World Series championship game this week! Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup is chock full of veggies and smoky flavor, so really hits the spot on a fall or winter day; I made mine here with some sale Butterball turkey sausage, but really any smoked sausage or kielbasa will work.

I think I originally based this recipe years ago on the hearty kielbasa soup from Foodie with Family, but have been making it so long that I’m not totally sure!

Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup

Ingredients

One or two 14 oz packages smoked sausage, chopped
Olive oil (if needed)
About 8 oz carrots, chopped
2-3 ribs celery, chopped
Two medium or 3-4 small onions, chopped
8 oz baby Bella mushrooms, chopped
One 32 oz box chicken broth
Two cans cannellini and/or Great Northern beans, with liquid
One can fire roasted diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp crushed red pepper
4 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
One bay leaf
Sea salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
4 cups water
5 oz fresh baby spinach

Directions

Chop up sausage and brown in large soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. (I usually slice in coins and then halve those if I’m using two packs of sausage, or quarter them if I’m using one pack. This totally depends on how meaty you want it; it’s good either way!) When sausage is browned, remove to a separate bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop your veggies. Saute carrots over medium heat for a few minutes in the grease from the sausage, then add celery and onions and saute until softened. (Note: If you’re using turkey sausage you may need to add a little olive oil because it’s lower in fat.) Add mushrooms and saute until softened.

When vegetables are soft, add the sausage back in along with the broth, beans, tomatoes, spices, and water. Simmer on low heat for at least an hour to combine flavors. Remove bay leaf and stir in baby spinach until wilted, then serve.

Soup is the quintessential one pot dinner!

We just enjoyed our smoked sausage & spinach soup with rolls, but you can also add a salad to really fill out the meal. Packed full of flavor and veggies, this soup is also an affordable family meal — especially in fall when the vegetables, broth, and smoked sausage are always seasonally on sale. Expect to get at least two meals for a family of four out of this big pot of hearty soup.

Easy smoked sausage & spinach soup is naturally gluten and dairy free, provided that your smoked sausage is.

Easy Smoked Sausage & Spinach Soup, printable recipe

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