Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Copycat Recipe
It almost pains me to give my husband credit for this soup recipe, but really it was his idea. He dropped the not so subtle hint by sharing a similar recipe on my timeline. I tracked down the original recipe to Food.com and decided to humour him.
The recipe was actually very good (sorry, I have never had the Olive Garden version so can’t compare the two), but I did make a few changes. Mainly I sautéed the onion, omitted the water and used Swanson Tuscan Chicken Flavor Infused Broth for the chicken broth. These little tweaks worked out really well, and this is definitely a recipe I will be making again soon!
Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Copycat Recipe
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 4 slices bacon, diced
- 1 pound bulk Italian sausage
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 cups chicken broth I used Swanson Tuscan Chicken Flavor Infused Broth
- 3 large potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 cups baby spinach
- 1 cup heavy cream
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add bacon and cook until brown and crispy, about 6-8 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.
- In a large stockpot or dutch oven cook Italian sausage over medium heat, crumble the sausage as it cooks with a spoon. Cook until cooked through, about 3-5 minutes. Remove sausage crumbles with slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add onion to the sausage drippings, and cook, stirring frequently, until onions have become translucent, about 2-3 minutes, add garlic and cook about 2 more minutes. Stir in chicken broth and bring to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.
- Stir in sausage and spinach until spinach begins to wilt, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in heavy cream until heated through.
- Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Serve immediately.
Recipe adapted from: Food.com
You really need to replace the spinach with kale or escarole. You add it (about two handfuls) about 5 mins before the soup is ready to eat, just enough to wilt it. I worked at OG for a few years and found myself missing this soup.