Zuppa Toscana Recipe: Healthier Alternative

When dog sitting for friends, I saw they had sweet Italian sausage in their fridge that would expire before they would return from their trip. Being lactose intolerant, loving Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana soup, and after a dear friend showed me how easy it is to make, I wanted to try cooking a healthier version using those sausages.

I took a recipe found online and changed it to the below:

Ingredients
1 pound sweet or spicy Italian sausage, casing removed
1 1/4 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1 Tablespoon gluten-free Chickpea flour (may substitute with cornstarch)
1 (14 oz.) can 30% less sodium and fat free chicken broth
1 (14 oz.) can fat free vegetable broth
3 cans (using chicken or vegetable broth cans from above) water
1 potato, thinly sliced
1 bunch fresh kale, tough stems removed

Steps

1. Cook the Italian sausage and red pepper flakes in a frying pan over medium-high heat until crumbly, browned, and no longer pink.
2. Remove sausage from pan leaving drippings in the pan.
3. Stir in the onions and garlic; cook until onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
4. Put sausages back into pan with onion and garlic.
5. Add Chickpea flour and stir until well coated.
6. Pour the chicken and vegetable broth and water into a stock pot and add the garlic, onion and sausage mixture; bring to a boil over high heat.
7. Add the potatoes, and boil until fork tender, about 20 minutes.
8. Mix the kale into the soup just before serving.

Here are the changes I made to the online recipe:

• • Reduced potatoes from 6 to only 1. (I air fried the other potato into chips to have a snack separately.)

• Eliminated the heavy cream
• Eliminated bacon
• Reduced onion from 1 whole to 1/2
• Replaced 5 cans of chicken broth with 1 low sodium chicken broth, 1 vegetable broth and 3 cans of water
• Replaced regular flour with chickpea gluten-free flour that was in my friends’ pantry to help thicken the broth since I eliminated the heavy cream. Cornstarch may also be used as a substitute.
  
• Replaced spinach with kale

I enjoyed customizing the recipe and loved how it turned out knowing that this version is a little healthier than the original recipe found online. If you try making my version, please let me know if you like it or still prefer original zuppa toscana with heavy cream.