| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 1 hr 10 min |
| Active: | 20 min |
| Yield: | 4 to 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons EVOO, plus more for drizzling
- 1 pound bulk Italian sweet sausage with fennel
- 3 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 large bay leaf
- 1 butternut squash or small pumpkin (2 pounds), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch dice
- Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- Freshly grated nutmeg
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 2 cups half-and-half
- 1 small bunch Tuscan kale, stemmed and chopped
- 3/4 cup Arborio rice
- A few fresh sage leaves, torn
- Shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano, for serving
Instructions
- Heat the EVOO in a soup pot or large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, crumbling it with a wooden spoon, until browned. Add the garlic and onions and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the bay leaf and squash and season with salt, pepper and a little nutmeg. Stir in the stock and half-and-half and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and add the kale. Simmer until the squash is tender, about 20 minutes.
- Add the rice and simmer until just tender, 18 to 20 minutes, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the sage.
- Ladle the soup into shallow bowls. Top with Parmigiano-Reggiano and a drizzle of EVOO. Cook’s Note: The soup, without the rice, can be covered and refrigerated for a make-ahead meal. Add the rice before serving.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 6 servings |
| Calories | 627 |
| Total Fat | 36 g |
| Saturated Fat | 13 g |
| Carbohydrates | 53 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Sugar | 12 g |
| Protein | 25 g |
| Cholesterol | 91 mg |
| Sodium | 1460 mg |
Reviews
A new Thanksgiving tradition! This is served the day after and my family raves! I use canned pumpkin to make it easy…
Great recipe for using up pumpkins! So delicious that I give it 5 stars even though I do think the half and half needs to go in last to avoid curdling. Also, I used pumpkin and had to cook it first to get the skin off, so it didn’t need to cook nearly as long. I was able to use two tiny pumpkins from my garden, and I still didn’t feel like there was too much pumpkin.
Delish!!! I made a few mods tho. Roasted the butternut squash, added white wine and used Turkey sausage. Subbed Arborio for wild & added star anise-only because the kale was bitter. Turned out very good! Will make again.
5 stars for flavor but needs very minor changes. I made exactly as the recipe says, which was going against my better judgement simmering the half and half for an extended period of time, as it did curdle a bit. It was still edible and delicious but I won’t do that again. Next time I’ll just add a splash of cream at the end when I turn the heat off (or I may add no cream as it would make this a very healthy weekday soup that is also very satisfying). If your sausage is fatty i would suggest draining it a bit. All in all this was still fantastic flavor and will definitely be making again.
So good even though I didn’t have some of the ingredients. I used seasoned sausage from our local butcher shop, butternut squash, Arborio rice, homemade chicken stock, heavy cream, nutmeg, salt & pepper. It is absolutely delicious! My three year old even loves it!
Delicious! I used a special blend pumpkin sausage. Wow! What a flavor. Will be making again.
Would it still be good if I substitute spinach for the Kale? Not a fan of kale.
An amazing soup! It was actually better the next day- thank goodness we had leftovers. I used butternut squash and ground turkey sausage and will make it exactly the way Rachael outlines. The flavors went surprisingly well together… the sage, arbio-rice, even the half-N-half even though I try not to use too much cream BUT once you’ve found a great soup you’d best stick with those ingredients 🙂 You go girl! A great soup!
We used butternut squash and was Delicious! A Hit is this house!
The flavors were great, but I had 2 problems. One, my sausage had a lot of fat which should have been partially drained off after browning. I ended up with droplets of fat floating in my finished soup. Two, I learned after making this that you can’t boil milk in a soup, only cream. Since the recipe calls for bringing the stock and half and half to a boil, mine separated. So I have a bowl of separated milk with a layer of fat floating on the top.