Creamy Sausage Tortellini Soup

Creamy Sausage Tortellini Soup is Italian sausage and cheese tortellini in a pink tomato broth with half and half stirred through. There’s spinach in it, so technically it’s a salad. Parmesan over the top because we’re not animals.

That’s the first thing, and I know it feels wrong. Every instinct you have about cooking sausage is telling you to drain that fat down the sink. Please ignore all of them.

That fat is where the onions and carrots are going. It’s what the flour cooks into. Pouring it away is pouring away most of the soup.

So: a pound of Italian sausage, browned, left exactly as it is. Then tomatoes, then cheese tortellini, then enough half and half to turn the whole pot a very pleasing pink.

It’s been on the blog since 2020 and it’s what I make when it’s dark at 4pm and I’d like to be handed something.

• Italian sausage (1 pound, casings removed): Hot or mild, entirely up to you and whoever you’re feeding. Don’t drain the fat off afterward. It’s the best thing in that pot and I’d like you to keep it.
• Olive oil (1 tablespoon): Just enough so the sausage doesn’t stick before it gets going.
• Onion (1 medium, chopped), carrot (1 medium, chopped) and celery (2 stalks, chopped): Straight into the sausage fat, 5 minutes, until everything’s soft and smells like a proper kitchen.
• Garlic (4 cloves, minced): Yes, 4. This soup can take it and so can you.
• Italian seasoning (1 tablespoon): My own Italian Seasoning blend, because I always have a jar going.
• Salt (1 teaspoon) and pepper (½ teaspoon): Sausage is salty, broth is salty, so start here and taste again at the end before you go adding more.
• All purpose flour (¼ cup): This is what stops the broth being watery. Sprinkle it in dry and let it cook a minute first. I know it looks wrong. Trust me for 60 seconds.
• Chicken broth (6 cups): Vegetable broth if you’d rather.
• Fire roasted tomatoes (14.5 ounces, 1 can): Please get the fire roasted ones. I will know.
• Tomato passata (2 cups): The smooth strained kind. It gives you a proper thick broth without lumps of tomato bobbing about.
• Cheese tortellini (14 ounces): Fresh or frozen, both completely fine.
• Half and half (2 cups): Not cream. I know cream is right there and I know exactly what you’re thinking. Half and half keeps this on the correct side of too much.
• Fresh spinach (1 cup, chopped): Goes in at the very end and takes about 2 minutes. This is your vegetable serving and I think that should count.

Brown the sausage: Get your Dutch oven over medium heat with the 1 tablespoon of olive oil in it. Squeeze the 1 pound of Italian sausage out of its casings straight into the pot and break it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks, 3 to 5 minutes. You want small crumbly pieces, not one big patty. It’ll let go of a good amount of fat and that’s the whole idea, so leave it right where it is.

Soften the vegetables: Add the chopped onion, carrot and celery right on top of the sausage and all that fat. Give them about 5 minutes. You’re waiting for the onion to go see through and everything to soften at the edges. Around now your kitchen starts smelling like you know what you’re doing.

Wake up the garlic: Add the 4 minced garlic cloves, the 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper. 30 seconds, stirring the whole time, just until you can smell the garlic. Don’t wander off at this point, garlic goes bitter faster than you’d think.

Make the base: Sprinkle the ¼ cup of flour over everything and stir it for a minute. It’s going to clump into a thick paste and you’re going to be fairly sure you’ve ruined it. You haven’t. Pour in the 6 cups of chicken broth slowly, stirring as you go, and that paste loosens into a proper silky broth. Add the 14.5 ounce can of fire roasted tomatoes and the 2 cups of passata, bring it up to a boil, then drop it to low and leave it alone for 15 minutes.

Add the tortellini: In goes the 14 ounces of cheese tortellini and the 2 cups of half and half. Watch the color change when the dairy hits the tomato, it’s the nicest moment in the whole recipe. Give it about 10 minutes. The tortellini float when they’re nearly ready, and you want them al dente, because they’ll carry on softening in the hot broth while you’re eating.

Finish: Stir in the 1 cup of chopped spinach. It needs about 2 minutes and it’ll look like far too much right up until it isn’t. Taste it now. The sausage and the broth have both been quietly salting this soup the whole time, so you may not need another grain.

Serve: Ladle it out, grate Parmesan over every bowl, tear basil on top if you’ve got some.

Three small things are doing most of the work here, and they all happen before the tortellini turns up.

The flour. A ¼ cup cooked into the sausage fat for a minute gives you a broth that clings to the spoon instead of sliding off it. It’ll look like a paste and you’ll worry. Don’t. The broth sorts it out.

Fire roasted tomatoes. I bring this up a lot and I’m going to keep bringing it up. Regular diced tomatoes give you a perfectly nice soup. Fire roasted ones give you a soup that tastes like it’s been on the stove since lunchtime. They cost about 40 cents more.

Half and half instead of cream. Cream would make this very rich very fast. Half and half softens the tomato, turns the whole thing a lovely pale pink, and lets you have a second bowl without lying down afterward.

• Hot sausage: A slow warmth that creeps up on you about 4 spoonfuls in. My preferred kind of heat.
• Kale instead of spinach: Put it in 5 minutes earlier. Kale needs more convincing.
• More vegetables: Zucchini, bell pepper or green beans, in with the onion and carrot. Nobody will mind.
• Turkey sausage: Works nicely if you want it lighter. Use whole milk instead of half and half and accept that it won’t be quite as silky.
• A can of white beans: Drained, in with the broth, if you’re feeding more people than you planned for. Which happens.

Fridge: 3 days in an airtight container.

Fair warning: the tortellini carries on drinking the broth all night. By tomorrow this is considerably thicker, which I personally enjoy. If you don’t, splash in some broth or milk when you reheat and it loosens up again.

Making it ahead on purpose? Stop after the tomato stage and put it away. Add the tortellini, half and half and spinach when you reheat, about 12 minutes. That version tastes brand new.

Freezer: Freeze the base only, before the tortellini and dairy go in, up to 3 months. Half and half does not enjoy being frozen and tortellini turns to mush. Neither of them will forgive you.

Reheating: Gently, medium low. If you boil it hard after the dairy’s in, it can split, and then you’ll be sad.

To go with it:

• No Knead Bread
• Garlic Cheese Bread

More soup:

• Creamy Vegetable Tortellini Soup, the sensible sibling
• Minestrone Soup
• Sausage and Bean Soup
• Tuscan Bean Soup
• Lemon Rice and Chicken Soup
• Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup

More sausage:

• Creamy Sausage Tortellini
• One Pot Sausage Pasta on Craving Home Cooked