CREAMY SAUSAGE & CABBAGE SOUP

CREAMY SAUSAGE & CABBAGE SOUP

Soup Recipes

Cabbage and sausage just seem to go hand in hand.  If you’ve read my blog before,  you likely  know that I love all things cabbage from Cabbage Roll Soup to Sausage and Cabbage cooked on the grill! Cabbage is inexpensive, a little bit goes a long way and once cooked, it’s tender with a delicious sweet flavor.

Now that fall has officially arrived and the weather is getting cooler, in my house it’s officially soup season.  There is just something about a delicious warm bowl of soup that warms your belly from the inside out and this creamy cabbage soup recipe is no exception.  If a hug were food, it would be this soup.

This easy soup starts with sausage, I use kielbasa but you can also use a garlic sausage or pretty much any smoked (fully cooked) sausage that you’d like.  I make this cabbage soup with potatoes to give it a nice creamy texture (and to keep my belly full all day long).  Fresh carrots and cabbage add both fresh and sweet flavors to this soup and of course cream makes it buttery irresistible.

While is a creamy soup, keep in mind it is not a thick soup like a chowder. The creamy portion of this soup comes from making a roux.  While roux may sound like a fancy or difficult cooking term, it’s really easy.  A roux is the base for most white sauces and starts by cooking butter and flour (to get rid of that raw flour flavor) and then adding in milk or cream and cooking until thick and bubbly.  The roux is then added to the soup in this recipe giving it a delicious buttery cream flavor.

If you’d like your soup to be thicker, you can certainly increase the butter/flour mixture to about 3/4 cup each while leaving the milk the same.  I also give my potatoes just a slight little mash with a potato masher to help thicken the broth somewhat.

We add a little bit of fresh dill to this soup at the very end for a pop of freshness.  If you don’t have fresh dill you can substitute dry dill and add it along with roux to allow it to rehydrate.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb smoked sausage sliced
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup onion chopped
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 3/4 lb potatoes diced (about 2-3 medium)
• 2 carrots sliced
• 3-4 cups cabbage chopped
• 1 stalk celery sliced
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill
• Follow Spend With Pennies on Pinterest

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Cook sausage, onion and butter until onion is tender. Add celery, carrot, potato, cabbage, broth and salt & pepper to taste.
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
3. ...............................................

for full instruction please see : www.spendwithpennies.com

COPYCAT PANERA BAKED POTATO SOUP

COPYCAT PANERA BAKED POTATO SOUP

Soup Recipes

While this heading may seem paradoxical, it really isn’t.

This baked potato soup has a rich taste, but at the same time, it’s very light. It relies primarily on the taste of a good chicken stock, tangy cream cheese and a bit of bacon for flavor.

With cream, cream cheese and chicken stock, this wouldn’t convert to a vegan recipe all that easily, but it can be made meat free for lacto-vegetarians by using a good veggie stock and eliminating the bacon. For a bacony flavor, some of the vegetarian soy-based bacon isn’t too bad so you might want to consider using some of that if you desire a smoky flavor in the soup

You will doubtless find many similar recipes for Panera’s Baked Potato Soup on the web.

They all are good and will only differ most times by one or two ingredients or amounts of those ingredients. I based this recipe off of Stephanie’s recipe on Copycat Recipes as it aligned more closely with my tastes. However, I like more creaminess in a soup and I like these types of soups a bit thicker, so I altered her amounts of butter and flour. And of course, I love bacon, so more of that was added!

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups unsalted chicken stock
• 3 tsp chicken base (I use Better Than Bouillon)
• 4 large potatoes, peeled & diced into 1-inch cubes
• ¼ cup finely chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ¼ cup flour
• 4 tbs butter
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 4 oz cream cheese, cut in cubes
• ¼ cup chopped chives
• ⅓ cup diced cooked bacon
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place potatoes, chicken stock and chicken base in a large pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
2. In another large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent and aromatic, about 5 minutes.
3. ..............................................

for full instruction please see : bakeatmidnite.com