Sausage and White Bean Soup

Ladle of creamy Italian sausage and cannellini bean soup with sausage, white beans, carrots, and greens held over a pot of simmering soup, photographed by Kim Ledet for Marye at Restless Chipotle.

This Italian sausage and cannellini bean soup is cozy, hearty, and unapologetically practical—the kind of one-pot dinner that warms you up, fills you up, and makes the whole house smell like you’ve got an Italian grandma living in the kitchen. Rich broth, creamy beans, and savory sausage do the heavy lifting, and all you have to do is ladle it up and enjoy the attitude adjustment

Course Main Dish, Soup

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 40

Total Time 50

Servings

Calories 551kcal

Author Marye Audet-White

Ingredients

1 pound Italian sausage hot or sweet—choose your destiny
2 cups onion chopped
4 cloves garlic minced like you mean it
½ cup carrots diced
½ cup celery stalks diced
2 ½ teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
4 cups chicken broth
15 ounces white beans drained & rinsed (cannellini or great northern)
15 ounces white beans, not drained this is your creamy secret
1 cup spinach chopped
½ cup heavy cream
Salt + black pepper
A squeeze of lemon
Red pepper flakes for attitude

Instructions

Brown the sausage in a soup pot. Scoop it out and set aside, leaving the fat in the pan because flavor has entered the chat.
Toss in the onion, carrots, and celery. Let them soften with the sausage drippings, about 5–7 minutes. Add the garlic and let it go fragrant.
Sprinkle in the smoked paprika, Italian seasoning, and maybe a few red pepper flakes.
Pour in the broth, the drained beans, and the can of undrained beans. That bean liquid? Pure silk. Add the bay leaf.
Return the sausage to the pot. Let it simmer 20–25 minutes until everything’s friendly and thick.
Stir in the spinach and cook another 5 minutes until it wilts but don't let it turn into pond slime.
Turn off the heat and swirl in the heavy cream. Add a squeeze of lemon to wake it all up.
Taste. Adjust salt and pepper.

Notes

Storage:

Let the soup cool, then store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. The broth will thicken as it sits—this is normal.

Tips

Brown the sausage properly before adding anything else. Color equals flavor, and pale sausage is just missed opportunity.
Don’t drain both cans of beans. One drained, one not is the whole reason the broth turns creamy without extra work.
Add the spinach at the very end and then stop touching it. Wilted is good. Swampy is not.

Nutrition