Sausage and Tortellini Soup

Soups and Stews - my favorite thing about fall and winter! I love all kinds of soup and have made so many different recipes over the past few years. Check out all of my soup recipe posts here, or go to my Recipe Index and then scroll down for a list of recipes with links to the actual posts.

I was really excited when I saw that the theme for the latest Taste of Home Cooking recipe swap was soups and stews. I submitted my Creamy Cabbage Soup with Gruyere recipe and was given this recipe for Sausage Tortellini Soup by The Frugal Girl.

Whenever I'm making something new, I love to read the recipe, think about the ingredients and cooking method, and figure out how it is going to taste so I know what changes I want to make. After reading this recipe, I decided to make quite a few changes.

The original recipe used sweet turkey sausage; I used hot Italian sausage. The original recipe had me cooking the sausage, and then adding the broth to the pan. I knew the sausage would let off a lot of grease and I didn't want that to be the base of my soup. So I cooked the sausage and then added it to the soup pot. Also, the recipe noted to cook the onions and garlic with the sausage; instead, I sauteed the onions, garlic, and carrots in the soup pot, then added the sausage, then the broth. I also omitted the bell pepper, added spinach, used more garlic, used a different blend of herbs, omitted the wine, and used 8 cups of chicken broth instead of 5 cups of beef broth (so glad I did - I would have had a thick stew otherwise!).

Below is my variation on the recipe -

Ingredients

• 1 pound hot Italian sausage, casing removed for crumbling
  
• 1 cup chopped sweet onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 carrot, diced
  
• 8 cups low sodium chicken broth
  
• 1 14.5 oz can whole tomatoes, chopped (I prefer buying whole tomatoes and chopping them myself because you know you are getting a whole tomato. With cans of diced tomatoes, the quality isn't as good, in my experience)
  
• 8 oz. tomato sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning blend
• 1/2 c frozen spinach
• Frozen tortellini, about 4-6 oz
  

Directions

• Heat a large saute pan; add tbsp olive oil. Crumble sausage into the pan, cooking until browned, constantly breaking it up into smaller pieces.
  
• In a separate soup pot (I used my Dutch oven), heat 1 tbsp olive oil. Add onions, garlic, and carrots. Saute 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, saute 2-3 minutes.
  
• Transfer the cooked sausage to the soup pot. Add the tomato sauce, broth, and herbs. Bring to a low simmer for 15-20 minutes.
• Add the spinach and tortellini; simmer until the tortellini has warmed, about 5 minutes.
  

This had a really nice kick to it, so if you don't like things too spicy, use sweet sausage. I love the changes I made and would definitely make this one again.