Healthy Sausage and Kale Soup

Don't leave! You are at the right blog! 

I know, I know... a vegetarian sharing a recipe with sausage in it? Totally weird. I get it. ;) But I had to share this dinner that I made for Billy. Especially since it is the coldest that it's been in two decades (don't make me tell you that it is negative nine but feels like negative thirty five..oh wait..) and soups couldn't be more perfect for this kind of thing. This makes a really large pot, so count yourself in for leftovers!

If you've been here for a while, you know how my recipes go:

-Quick, easy ingredient list, and {for the most part} healthy.

This one is no different. Just add in the fact that it's so flavorful, too. (I did try just a few bites by picking out the sausage from my bowl. I had to see how it tasted for myself!)

Ingredients:

via Allrecipes

+1 lb spicy italian sausage links, halved lengthwise

+2 large carrots, chopped

+1 small onion, chopped

+2 cloves garlic, minced

+6 cups chicken broth (low sodium)

+1 cup chopped portobello mushroom caps (optional-if you don't like them, skip them but I think they are so yummy in this soup!)

+1 cup chopped cauliflower

+2 cups coarsely chopped kale

+1 bay leaf

+1/2 teaspoon oregano

Steps:

+Heat a large pot over medium heat. Cook the sausages in the pot until browned (3 to 5 minutes on each side). Remove sausages to a cutting board to cool, reserving sausage drippings in the pot.

+Cook and stir the carrots and onion in the reserved sausage drippings (this makes it so flavorful!) until the onion is translucent. Stir garlic into carrot and onion mix-cook and stir for 15 seconds. Pour the chicken broth into the pot and bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.

+Return sausages to the broth along with mushrooms, cauliflowers, kale, bay leaf, and oregano. Stir and reduce heat to low and cook at a simmer until the vegetables are tender yet firm enough to keep their shape-about 15 minutes. Remove the sausages to the cutting board and cut into 1-inch half moons and return them to the soup. Simmer together for another 5 minutes.

Enjoy and stay warm, everyone!

 {....too soon to ask for an early spring?}

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