I have an addiction...to Olive Garden.
My two most favorite foods are Mexican food and Italian food. Olive Garden has my favorite of all time Alfredo sauce, it's definitely unique and so much richer than other restaurants Alfredo sauces. Another item on their menu that in my opinion, is to die for, is their Zuppa Toscana soup. It's a rich flavorful soup with spicy sausage, kale, and potatoes.
Now Olive Garden is generous enough to give us their Alfredo sauce recipe listed on their website. Which I will put on here later in this post if you would like it. Because I sure am glad to have it. Their Zuppa Toscana that I was craving lately on the other hand, is not listed in their recipes on their website. Sadly. Now living on a military base 45 minutes away from the nearest "town" and a little over an hour away from the nearest Olive Garden is a problem when craving these items. I went on a mission to try and find this soup recipe. After searching through Google and Pinterest, I finally found something worth my time.
I came across a website that had a copy-cat recipe for Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana. Basically, the closest thing that I could probably get to the real thing. I made it last night for dinner and had it ready for when the Hubby came home from a long 4 days at work in the field. And OMG. It turned out incredibly amazing. This recipe, is a must to write down and keep in a safe place. Now personally, I made a few little twists to the recipe. So I will list my recipe and instructions, but of course the link to where I originated the recipe from will be following this post. So here it is:
Ingredients:
2 cans of Chicken Broth (I used Swanson Chicken Broth)
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 medium russet potato
1.5-2 cups of chopped kale
1/2 pound of Jimmy Dean HOT sausage (now this sausage made it spicier than the original recipe called for, but this is my favorite sausage so it is what I used)
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes (if you cant tell by now, my husband and I like our stuff spicy, feel free to remove this and just use normal pepper if you want)
Instructions:
1. Combine both the broth and cream in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
2. Slice the unpeeled potato into 1/4 inch slices, then quarter the slices and stir them into the soup.
3. Stir the kale into the soup.
4. Saute the sausage and break the sausage up as you are cooking it. When sausage is fully cooked, stir it into the soup as well.
5. Add the spices into the soup, go ahead and taste your soup broth and add spices to your content.
6. Put a lid over the soup and simmer for about 40 minutes, really until the potatoes are nice and soft. Remember to still about every 5 minutes.
7. Serve the soup up, and grade some fresh Parmesan cheese on top, then enjoy!
Along with the soup I cooked some garlic bread to have with it.
This amount was good for both my husband and I. (I had one full bowl of soup, and he had two full bowls ha ha).
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
