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How does lemon sausage soup sound for dinner? Continuing a winter theme over here…trying to keep you warm !
I love to cook and bake. One of my favorite things to cook are soups. I love them because they are easy to make ahead of time, which is way less stressful. They are VERY forgiving. It doesn’t matter if you forget something or don’t have something you thought you did, this happens to me often. Soups can also be very healthy, or very comforting, or somewhere in between. We usually go for that balance, but sometimes ya gotta go big or go home! I also think they are just fun: chopping, sautéing, stirring, a little of this, a little of that!
So, this particular soup was one I started making six years ago or so after scrolling Pinterest looking for ideas. I didn’t follow any specific recipe, and I have never made it the same way twice. This is really my kind of soup, haha. It can be yours, too! Make it your own. Switch things up, add more of this, or less of that. You’ve got this!
Ingredients
- 1 Sausage link
- 2 Cans white beans
- 48 oz Chicken broth
- 2 Lemons
- 1 Onion
- 4 Garlic cloves
- Baby spinach
- Gouda cheese
Directions:
Ok, turn on your favorite music to cook to! What is it? I love listening to some Michael Bublé when I’m cooking.
I’m going to break this all down for you more, but basically you:
- Chop garlic and onion
- Saute garlic and onion in a little fat
- Cut and brown the sausage
- Rinse beans
- Zest and juice lemons
- Add remaining ingredients (NOT spinach and cheese)
- Pressure cook, simmer, or slow cook!
Chop
First chop up your onion and garlic. Again, you can use more or less of these depending on your preference. I used fresh. One of my favorite hacks is to use the jar of minced garlic you keep in the fridge, and a bag of frozen onions. I like to keep these things on hand so if I want to make something when I haven’t really meal planned they are ready. They also save a lot of time. I also think they are less wasteful, sometimes I have trouble with onions going bad before I use them. I know they are supposed to keep a long time, I don’t know what is wrong with me.
Sauté
Next, sauté them in a little fat of your choice. I used a sliver of butter this time. Depending on the sausage link you bought, this soup will have plenty of fat, so that is why I didn’t want to use much. If you do use the frozen onions, just make sure you sauté them a little longer. They really need to sweat it out.
This time, I made my soup in the Instant Pot. I do really love how you can sauté something and then keep moving forward without extra dishes. I usually like to do the Slow Cooker setting for soups. It is just nice to have the smell flowing all day long. I also like to walk by and peek and stir. But, I actually didn’t get this made ahead of time. Our meal plan changed because the grocery store was out of carrots, so I had to switch things around. I really wanted to wait to have carrots with the planned roast hehe. So, I started around 3:30 after getting settled from snacks and kids home from school.
Cut and Brown the Sausage
While you are waiting for those onions to be translucent and garlic golden brown go ahead and slice up the sausage of your choice. Again, you can get whatever kind you like or whatever is on sale! I tried to slice it thinner, so we got more in every bite. For our family of six we could probably have used two. When you are ready, add this to the onions and garlic. This is precooked so I just like to get them kind of crispy around the edges. It makes for a better texture in the soup. I tried it one time skipping this step to be lazy, and it is worth the extra bit of effort!
Rinse Beans
We are multitasking here people, so while you are occasionally stirring the sausage, drain and rinse your beans! If beans aren’t your thing you could try something like orzo pasta, or served over rice, or just leave it out all together, I don’t care!
Zest and Juice Lemons
That doesn’t take too long, so now start zesting your lemons. I zested both for this recipe, and squeezed both as well. Emma walked by when I was zesting, and she was like “ooohhhh your zesting, huh?”! It was just funny. She has been really into baking and cooking, too. Last night, she made dinner!
When we were eating, Emma said it was pretty “lemony” so if that’s not your thing maybe take it easy the first time. Maybe she knows about zesting, but doesn’t have the taste for it haha. But it is like a big part of the soup, so maybe if it doesn’t sound good to you this soup isn’t for you, ha! Some lemons also aren’t very juicy, these were great ones. Increase or decrease accordingly.
How cute is this juicer!? My mother-in-law got it for me a long time ago at Anthropologie, I had to hold it over my Anthro rug that I am still loving. It does keep sliding though, I might try the rug tape…have any of you?
Add Remaining Ingredients to Soup
When you are happy with the sausage, add the rinsed beans, lemon zest, lemon juice, and chicken stock. I used a whole 32 oz. carton and then wanted a little more…I just eye ball it. It is totally up to you, you could make it more chili like consistency and do less of that and more beans. Whatever! Give it a little stir. It was already pretty dark, but also my pot was too steamy to take a picture of for you, sorry!
Let the Soup Cook!
That’s it for now. I didn’t even season it with salt and pepper. There is plenty of salt in the sausage and stock, and I didn’t want to do the pepper in HOPES the children would eat it. Since I was making mine in the Instant Pot and was not on top of things, I was able to take a short cut! You put the sealing lid on, and just press SOUP. It is pretty magical. I was finished making it by 4:00 (so it took me half an hour, and that’s with taking pictures, breaking up fights, refilling waters, etc. etc. etc.). The pressure built up in about 15 or 20 minutes and then it pressure cooked for 30 minutes.
If you are making it on the stove, I would just simmer. If you are making it in the crock pot I would set it to Low. Nothing in this soup needs to “cook” it just needs to all come together!
Supporting Soup Ingredients
In the mean time, I grabbed some crusty bread from the freezer to put in the oven. It went went really well with it. Any bread, garlic bread, rolls, any would be delicious with it! I love bread. I washed and prepped strawberries for a fruit to serve with the dinner. I took some pictures of my flowers and the cute soup bowls I got for Barry a long time ago because he loves French Onion Soup. These ones are similar, aren’t the lids so cute?
When it is time to serve it you grab the spinach from your fridge and the gouda! Gouda is good. Please try it with gouda before another cheese. But then you can mix it up! I like to ladle my soup then add my toppings. Barry adds his toppings, then ladles his soup! How about you!?
I just love how the spinach melts into the soup. And it makes me feel extra healthy! The spinach cooks down so when you add it to the warm soup you might go back for another handful, up to you again ;). Have you ever added fresh spinach to your hot soup? I bet it would be good in other soups as well.
Add salt and pepper if you’d like, we didn’t this time. Barry often adds a hot sauce to anything I make which always makes me question my cooking ability, haha. BUT, I don’t think he did this time!
Serving the soup!
This is how I served it to our kiddos. Kind of sad I know, but they did pretty well. Lots of critiques 😂! Hank only ate the sausage, Henry didn’t like the cheese, Emma liked the spinach, none of them liked the “water”. Haha! They all loved the bread and strawberries 🙃.
We don’t have too much for leftovers, maybe a lunch or two. Could have beefed it up so we had more, but oh well. Or we could have eaten a normal sized portion🙈.
Moving on to roast for dinner tonight anyways, with carrots ;)! Let me know if you make the soup and like it. Do you have a go to soup? Do you like making soups?
