Semi Zuppa Toscana
- Michelle Thomas
- Dec 11, 2017
- 2 min read
It's winter, that means cold nights and warm filling meals. I love Olive Garden, but am around an hour and a half away from the nearest one. I was craving their Zuppa Toscana soup, but did not want to drive all that way, especially with the snow we had this weekend. I didn't have all of the ingredients to make a full on knock-off attempt of their soup, but what I did make was raved about by my boyfriend with him going back for seconds and telling his parents how good it was. We ate this while watching Sleepy Hollow (I've never seen that show, so far I love it) and doing clearing clay masks, since my boyfriend loves me enough to indulge my whims lol. I made this using all fairly ready to eat ingredients making this a 30 minute (or less) meal that is filling, satisfying, and makes room for more family time.
Ingredients
* 1 package (1 lb) turkey smoked sausage
* 1 package tri-color cheese tortellini
* 1 package Idahoan loaded baked potato soup mix
* 1 box plain frozen chopped spinach
* 1 tsp garlic powder
* 2 tsp salt
* 1 tbsp black pepper
*6 cups water
Directions
Chop sausages into slices as pan preheats on medium setting.
Add 6 cups of water to pot and start heating, here the directions for the soup mix state 4, but I added 2 extra due to all the extras I was placing in the soup. As water heats, add in tortellini and half of salt and pepper.
Place sausages in a layer in pan and allow to char before flipping.
As water starts boiling, add in soup mix and whisk until well blended. Add in frozen spinach and stir frequently until all spinach is separated and leave on simmer.
As sausages char on both sides add them to soup along with garlic powder, remaining salt and pepper. Stir gently and let simmer 5 minutes to blend well.
This soup worked well on it's own, however it would also go well with a side salad and some crusty bread. We finished the evening with peppermint hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and another episode of Sleepy Hollow. I hope you give this a try and like it as much as we did!!