Easy Sausage Potato Soup

You will love this easy potato soup recipe with Italian sausage, potatoes, garlic, and kale. The soup is comforting and ultra-flavorful. Jump to the Easy Sausage Potato Soup Recipe

There are lots of ways to make potato soup, but this recipe with sausage and kale is our favorite. It’s rustic and full of flavor. Nobody wants a flavorless soup, right?

How to Make the Best Potato Soup

Our potato and sausage soup is savory, comforting, and keeps well in the fridge. If you’ve ever had Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana soup, this potato soup is similar (although, I’d wager it’s better). We’ve been making a version of it for years.

This potato soup recipe is simple so the ingredients you use matter. Here’s the rundown for you:

Potatoes: You can use any type of potato, but we highly recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes. There’s no need to peel them, and when cooked, they are buttery and almost melt in your mouth. We use Yukon Gold potatoes to make mashed potatoes, too. If you cannot find them, baby red or white potatoes, as well as russet potatoes, will work.

Italian Sausage: Depending on your spice preference, you can use sweet Italian sausage or hot (spicy) Italian sausage. We use sweet Italian sausage and then adjust the soup spice level with crushed red pepper flakes.

Stock/Broth: For the most flavor, use a good quality chicken stock from the store or use homemade. When reaching for store-bought broth, we go for low-sodium. We also look for a store-bought broth that’s darker in color (usually means more flavor) and since it usually has more of a backbone, we like to buy boxed bone broth (we use homemade bone broth sometimes, too).

Cream or Milk: We combine chicken stock with cream for the soup broth. The chicken stock adds flavor, and the cream makes the broth silky and more luxurious — like in this creamy chicken noodle soup. We prefer to use cream when making soups, but if milk is all you have, be sure to read through our tips on using milk to prevent curdling. If you’re dairy-free, leave the cream/milk out. The soup will still taste great.

Herbs and spices: The Italian sausage already provides a lot of flavor, but adding garlic, dried oregano, nutmeg, and a bay leaf make the soup taste amazing. If you have some, a few sprigs of fresh thyme is a nice touch, too. For some heat, we love adding crushed red pepper flakes, but that’s up to your tastes.

Kale: For color and texture, we stir in chopped kale towards to end of cooking. To prepare kale, strip the leaves from the stalks (the stalks are too tough for this soup). Then chop or tear into bite-size pieces. Baby kale leaves work, too and don’t require any chopping. You can also use spinach, Swiss chard or other greens as a substitute.

Parmesan cheese: Parmesan is an optional ingredient, but if you have some on hand, it adds a lovely richness to the potato soup.

Making sausage and potato soup is simple, and it all happens in one pot! Here’s an overview of how to make it (the full potato soup recipe is below).

1. Brown the sausage.
2. Add the onions to the sausage and cook until soft.
3. Stir in the garlic, herbs, and spices.
4. Add the stock then bring to a low simmer.
5. Add the potatoes and cook, partially covered, until tender.
6. Stir in the kale and parmesan cheese. Taste for seasoning, and then serve!

If you enjoyed this potato soup recipe, here are a few more favorites:

• We love this easy, comforting potato and leek soup!
• If you have leftover potatoes, make potato salad!
• For the morning, try grating a potato and adding it to scrambled eggs. That’s what we do when making our easy breakfast tacos with potatoes and peppers.
• Potato soup is absolute comfort food, but so is this ultra-satisfying chicken noodle soup recipe (it’s so good!).
• We use potatoes as a base for our creamy vegetable soup. It has lots of 5-star reviews.