This filling soup that resembles a meal is made of white beans, sausage, and other hearty ingredients. A lovely fond is produced when the sausage is browned in a dry pan, adding rich flavor. This stew is filled with beans, vegetables, and sausage and will warm you from the inside out. Serve alongside a slice of stale Italian bread.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 9 hrs 45 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups dry cannellini beans
- 4 (6 ounce) Italian sausage links with garlic and fennel
- 1 cup chopped yellow onion
- ⅓ cup dry white wine
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 cups water, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- 4 cups chopped kale
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, or to taste
- 6 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, or to taste
- 6 pinches red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Soak beans in cold water, 8 hours to overnight.
- Drain beans and set aside.
- Make a cut down the center of each sausage and peel off the casing. Transfer sausage into a dry soup pot over medium-high heat. Brown sausage, while breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, 5 to 7 minutes. Cook and stir until juices start to caramelize and stick to the bottom of the pan, creating a fond, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add onion and stir to coat in the rendered sausage fat. Cook until onion starts to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add white wine to deglaze the pot. Add black pepper, red pepper flakes, bay leaf, and water.
- Add drained beans, increase heat to high, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Add salt and continue to simmer until beans are tender, about 30 more minutes. Taste beans to be certain they are perfectly cooked.
- Smash about 1/4 of the beans with a potato masher to give the stew a creamy texture if desired. Stir in chopped kale, increase heat to medium, and cook until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Taste and adjust salt.
- Ladle hot soup into bowls, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
- Instead of soaking dried beans overnight, you can use canned beans. Dried beans come out better though and are less expensive.
- Use any sausage you want. If your sausage doesn’t have garlic in it, add 2 cloves minced garlic 5 minutes after you add onion. Pecorino can be used instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
- If you don’t have wine, you can use 2 tablespoons wine vinegar and 1/4 cup water, or just use water.
- The amount of water you add will depend on how thick you want the stew. I use about 7 1/2 cups.
- You can use any greens for the kale, like spinach, Swiss chard, mustard greens, or stinging nettles. Cooking time will vary based on what you use.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 669 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 43 g |
| Cholesterol | 75 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 36 g |
| Saturated Fat | 13 g |
| Sodium | 1989 mg |
| Sugars | 3 g |
| Fat | 39 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This recipe was wonderful! The basic recipe is gluten and dairy free so my grandchildren can also enjoy it! I also learned a new technique to add enough flavor without the need to add broth. My son told me to make sure I save this recipe!!!
This turned out good I doubled the kale and will try crumpled bacon next time instead of sausage
Soup was excellent.Made some minature gnocchi with it , great soup chef! Thanks.
Made this with exactly the ingredients listed. I pressure cooked the cannellini beans for 20 minutes instead of soaking overnight and then followed the written directions. Absolutely scrumptious!
Couldn’t find the dry beans so I had to use can and it still came out delicious my family loved it.
Really delicious, healthy, and easy (especially with canned beans). I did use 1/2 chicken broth and 1/2 water. I had a parmesan cheese rind that I kept in the pot throughout cooking process. Yum. For my second serving I stirred a splash of cream into the bowl–oh yeah. You could do a lot with this soup–I may add ditalini pasta or rice sometime. Thank you so much for this recipe.
This was a lovely soup! After reading the reviews about adding a but of flavor, and knowing my taste, I added 1/2 packet low sodium beef broth to the water. Also used high quality organic bratwurst sausage. I only had one can of canellini beans but lots of dried navy beans so used a mixture. I prefer the canellini! The kale added the green crunch and real parmigiano-reggiano hand grated on top finished it off beautifully. This recipe is a keeper… it’s so easy! Thank you!
This soup is fanatastic! We all loved it.
Scrumptious. Been looking for more bean things to make, glad to have found this. Did steps 1-4, adding garlic, then put all in slow cooker, overnight (7 hours or so) on low. Added 2 tsp. chicken bouillon, cayenne, and blanched, chopped rapini. Great breakfast, couldn’t resist. I’ll add more beans next time. Thanks, CJ!
Delicious combination of flavors. Turned out well using “country sausage” and fennel seeds and garlic, and starting with dried navy beans.
Made this last night for dinner and though I followed Chef John’s suggestions I did do a few things differently. I didn’t have dried beans so I used two cans rinsed and drained however after I added seasonings and water (added a chicken bouillon cube with 7 cups water) I simmered the stock 1/2 hour before adding beans to allow flavors to develop without overcooking the beans … then added 1 1/2 cans beans to stew and simmered another 1/2 hr. Added 21/2 cups frozen chopped spinach (which I allowed to drain while stew was simmering) and remaining 1/2 can of beans mashed. Did not use any salt because of salt content in bouillon cube and canned beans. This is amazing!! Will try with dry beans and fresh greens next time but I was quite pleased with the results. Served with chunks of warm home made Italian bread for dunking … delicious Thanks Chef John!!
I’ve made this several times and it’s fantastic. Even the picky eaters in the house eat it with no complaints. I tend to use a bit more water than called for as we like a little more liquid with it.
This was one “Delicious” dish…great flavor.
I don’t think we have tried a single Chef John recipe that we haven’t liked and this one was no different. It was soooo good! I followed the recipe exactly except I used spinach instead of kale. I also added some minced garlic with the onion because the Italian sausage I used did not have any in it. I used 7 cups of water and needed to cook the beans an additional 30 minutes to get them tender enough. Soup always tastes better the second day so we’re looking forward to leftovers today. Thank you, Chef John.
So hearty and good on a cold Winter day!
Awesome recipe. Used canned white and northern beans.
very good to almost great. Made it for my daughter and myself. Both like it but daughter was expecting another Italian sausage soup we had in the past so she was conflicted while I really liked it.
For tasty ! My twist: 1/2 and 1/2 Chicken Broth and Water, canned Beans drained but not rinsed much- just a little to get that “slime” off them, and lastly a piece of Parmesan Cheese Rind that I keep in my freezer for Soups and Stews. I did not add any Salt, it didn’t need to my taste anyways.
I only gave this 4 stars because I think it needed further flavor from some broth vs All water. I used 2/3 broth (a combination of chicken and vegetables broth ) to 1/3 water. I also added 1 Tbs of cider vinegar near the end of simmering because I think kale benefits from some acid. This amount was not enough to be pronounced in flavor but enough to add that little something, something. You have to add the acid near the end of cooking so it doesn’t make your beans tough if using dry beans. If using canned beans it’s a non issue.
simple but delicious receipe
Phenomenal soup!! Made it for my mom and gramma, who are both in self quarantine , they loved having a girls lunch together and loved the soup with some nice crusty italian bread!!! Thanks for the recipe and some good memories Chef John!!!! And is this stew something I could freeze the extra for later?