This delicious soup came from the Damn Delicious blog. I made a few alterations to make it a little friendlier to my dietary needs. I'll go ahead and leave the original recipes for my milk and cheese lovers, and include my alterations in parentheses.
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound Italian sausage, casing removed
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 4 cups chicken stock (reduced sodium)
- 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 (9-ounce) package refrigerated three cheese tortellini (I used a tomato and oregano tortellini from Aldi, it was good, but I think the cheese is probably better!)
- 1/2 bunch kale, stems removed and leaves chopped
- 1/3 cup heavy cream (I like to use oatmilk or oatmilk creamer when I can find it)
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Instructions:
- Heat olive oil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add Italian sausage and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the sausage as it cooks; drain excess fat.
- Stir in garlic, onion and Italian seasoning. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions have become translucent, about 2-3 minutes; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Whisk in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in chicken stock and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced and slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.
- Stir in tortellini; cover and cook until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
- Stir in kale until wilted, about 1-2 minutes. Stir in heavy cream and basil until heated through, about 1 minute; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Serve immediately.
- Set Instant Pot to saute setting.
- Drizzle olive oil into the pot and add Italian sausage and cook until browned, making sure to crumble the sausage as it cooks; drain excess fat (if using a milk substitute, you may want to leave a little grease in the bottom, since you're losing fat from the heavy cream).
- Stir in garlic, onion and Italian seasoning. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions have become translucent; season with salt and pepper, to taste. (I did not add any salt to this recipe. I think it would be fine to leave the salting to the individual taster. I also did not need to add pepper, as I used hot sausage)
- Stir in flour until lightly browned, about 1 minute.
- Gradually whisk in chicken stock and tomato sauce.
- Select manual setting; adjust pressure to high, set time for 5 minutes. When finished cooking, do a natural pressure release for 10 minutes, then a controlled quick release.
- When the pin drops open the lid.
- Stir in tortellini, kale, heavy cream (or milk substitute), and basil until heated through. (You could add the cream and tortellini first, and then the kale and basil after about 5-8 minutes, once your tortellini has had time to cook.)
- Serve immediately (season with salt and pepper, to taste).
