I have to say, it’s pretty great living with someone who not only likes to cook, but is really good at it. And, while I may do most of the cooking, when Ry turns up, he TURNS UP. Over the past few months he’s been consistently making a handful of recipes and testing out what he likes best. One of my faves happens to be this soup. It’s pretty much an Italian wedding soup. There have been quite a few iterations along the way, but the general combo has always been, beans, greens, sausage and potatoes. It just varies on what time of year it is. He’s used everything from sweet to spicy Italian sausage, chorizo, kale as the green and even did one version with beef stock and barley that was delish.
For this specific version he used escarole and porchetta sausage, which he gets from Giunta’s at the Reading Terminal Market here in Philly. The sausage has a ton of garlic, rosemary and fennel in it, and is so good. If you’re not in Philly, and can’t get your hands on it, just use some sweet Italian sausage and add in a bit more garlic and some fresh rosemary.
And, while I may do most of the cooking, when Ry turns up, he TURNS UP.
Italian Wedding Soup
Equipment
- Large Pot
Ingredients
- 3 links porchetta sausage or any Italian sausage you like
- 1/2 white onion diced
- 4 C chicken stock vegetable stock or even water would work fine here
- 2 potatoes diced
- 1/2 C white wine optional
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes optional
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 C white beans rinsed and drained
- 1 head escarole well cleaned and torn into rough pieces
- fresh ground pepper
- olive oil
- parmesan cheese grated
Instructions
- Since we generally start with dried beans for this, I like to soak them ahead of time and get them cooked up so they’re ready to use when Ry needs em. Obvi, this needs to get done ahead of time, otherwise just use a can of beans.
- First thing is to get the sausage browned up. Just remove it from its casing and get it into a hot pan. You shouldn’t need much oil, if any, since sausage tends to be pretty fatty. Once you start to get some color on the meat you can go ahead and add in the onions to get them cooking. You want them translucent, but not browned. You can also remove any excess fat at this point if you need to, keep a bit in there but you don’t want the soup to be super greasy. Just use your best judgement here.
- Once your onions are translucent, go ahead and add in your potatoes. They only need to cook for a minute or so, they’ll do most of their cooking once you add in the stock. You can then go ahead and add in that white wine to deglaze the pan, being sure to scrape all those good bits off the bottom of the pan. Next add in your paprika and red pepper and cook for a few second.
- Now you can add in that stock, check for seasoning and then let those potatoes cook for about 10 minutes on a low simmer. Add in your beans and escarole and then let that simmer for another 10 minutes or until the greens are tender and your potatoes are completely cooked through. I would also make sure to test for seasoning again and adjust as needed.
- To plate it up I like to add some fresh ground pepper, a generous bit of grated parmesan and most likely a drizzle of some really good olive oil. That’s it. Eat up!
Notes
3 thoughts on Italian Wedding Soup
I’m livin in S FL. It’s warm here but I’m gonna make me some if that soup. Comfort Food at its best.
Simply delicious, hearty & easy since I used canned beans.
I also doubled the recipe to share with other family members during this ‘Stay in Place’ time.
All recipients give a hearty thumbs up! Bravo to the chef!
I love that you made this! I have some stashed in the freezer that I might pull out next week.