This hearty recipe for Italian lentil soup with sausage brings the flavor, from the Italian seasoned sausage to a Parmesan-infused broth, with an impactful pop of balsamic vinegar tying everything together at the end. Packed with vegetables and leafy greens, this nutritious and filling soup will keep you warm on chilly nights.
Growing up we had two different lentil soups on the dinner menu: one more standard (my smokier Instant Pot lentil soup adaptation) and one with sausage that leans Italian in flavor. This recipe is modeled after the latter.
I'm a soup-year-rounder but this Italian sausage lentil soup screams "winter" to me. It's warming, of course, but is extra filling with both meat and fiber-rich lentils and makes use of cold-weather seasonal greens.
Served with crusty bread, a small glug of balsamic vinegar that has no business being so good here, and freshly-shredded Parmesan (always more Parmesan), this is the kind of recipe that makes you excited for next-day lunch leftovers.
Recipe Ingredients
- Lentils: Either green or brown lentils are good for this recipe. Dry lentils are used here, which are then sorted, rinsed, and cooked in the soup. No pre-soaking is necessary.
- Italian Sausage: Mild, sweet, hot - pick your favorite. Italian flavored sausage is a great way to bring flavor to lentil soup. Pork or turkey are fine.
- Carrots/Onion/Celery: Known as soffritto, this classic soup trifecta is cooked in olive oil to provide a reliably delicious soup foundation.
- Spices: These include many of the individual herbs and spices found in Italian seasoning: basil, oregano, parsley, thyme, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic powder, and pepper. Two bay leaves also simmer in the soup for that background X-factor flavor.
- Chicken Broth: This Italian lentil soup recipe, like just about all of my recipes, was tested using reduced-sodium chicken broth. Pictured above is a very convenient chicken bouillon paste, to which I add water.
- Tomatoes: Canned diced tomatoes (I love fire-roasted!) and tomato paste for a deeper flavor.
- Parmesan: One of my favorite soup steps (seen in minestrone soup and escarole and beans) is simmering a solid piece of a Parmesan or Pecorino wedge in soup. It melts and disappears by the end, infusing the liquid with an extra flavorful, slightly nutty/tangy note.
- Kale: Added near the end, kale is a hardier leafy green than spinach that takes longer to cook in soups, but doesn't slime up and wilt into nothing. Curly kale is fine, though I'm partial to Lacinato (also known as dinosaur or Tuscan kale).
Sorting and Rinsing Lentils
When processing lentils (and split peas and other legumes), it's possible for small rocks and debris to slip through and not be separated out and discarded due to their similar size. So before cooking with dried lentils at home, you'll want to give them a good look over and discard anything that is not a lentil, or is overly wrinkly, misshapen, or discolored. I shake them out in batches in a single layer on a plate. Then rinse the lentils well under cool water.
Step-by-Step Instructions
- Step 1: Fully cook and crumble Italian sausage in a large soup pot. Transfer to a plate and wipe the now-empty pot clean.
- Step 2: Cook the onion, carrot, and celery in olive oil until softening, then add garlic and tomato paste. Cook for 3 minutes - sticking on the bottom of the pot is okay.
- Step 3: Pour in the wine to deglaze, using a wooden utensil to scrape up the stuck-on browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir them into everything for extra flavor.
- Step 4: Sprinkle in the dried herbs and spices, then add the broth, diced tomatoes (with juices), cooked and crumbled sausage, hunk of Parmesan, bay leaves, and lentils.
- Step 5: Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce heat to a constant simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils have softened.
- Step 6: Remove the bay leaves and stir the kale into the soup. Simmer for 7-8 minutes, or until the kale has cooked down enough to be tender to chew. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar (see more on this below!) and serve.
Tips and Tricks
- Partially-cover the pot, then don't - During the long simmer, only partially place a lid on the pot, maintaining the largest opening you can manage to allow steam to escape. The lid helps save your cooktop from lots of tiny splatter, but we need steam to escape so this sausage lentil soup can reduce in order to develop a thicker texture and more concentrated flavor. No lid is needed once the kale is added.
- Cooking tomato paste - Mushing globs of tomato paste into the vegetables isn't exactly an elegant cooking step, but this brief sauté time before adding liquid allows the natural sugars in the tomato paste to semi-caramelize and develop a browned, richer flavor. A tasty Maillard reaction at work.
- Salt to taste - You'll notice I don't add salt earlier in the cooking process. Between the highly seasoned Italian sausage, chicken broth, and Parmesan infusion I find this Italian lentil soup to be sufficiently salty as it ends up. Of course, take a taste after adding the balsamic vinegar and see if you'd like to add some before serving.
- Don't forget about the bay leaves - From experience, trying to fish out bay leaves from a pot of soup is made more difficult if you've already added a bunch of leafy greens. Try and remember to find them before the kale goes in.
Serving Suggestions
This is more than a suggestion...maybe a passionate recommendation? Please stir a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar into this Italian lentil soup with sausage before serving.
This soup certainly is very good if you're just not a balsamic fan or don't have any at the moment, but the flavorful/sweet/tart acidity ties all of the flavors together beautifully and elevates it to something stand-out. A little hint of balsamic vinegar is a game-changer when finishing baked risotto and farrotto, and it's no different here.
Otherwise, taste for salt before serving alongside fresh crusty bread and additional shredded Parmesan/Pecorino.
More Hearty Soup Recipes
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Italian Lentil Soup with Sausage
Ingredients
- 8 ounces (scant 1 ¼ cups) dry green or brown lentils sorted and rinsed
- 1 pound ground Italian sausage pork or turkey, sweet/mild/hot
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium onion diced (1 heaping cup)
- 2 large carrots peeled and chopped (1 cup)
- 2 medium celery ribs chopped (¾ cup)
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
- ¾ cup dry white wine
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 8 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes (do not drain)
- 1 ounce piece of Parmesan or Pecorino Romano additional grated/shredded for serving
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 well-packed cups bite-size chopped Lacinato kale
- 1-2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar to taste
- Salt if needed, to taste
Instructions
- Sort and rinse lentils. Do this by pouring out the lentils onto a plate and discarding any foreign matter like rocks or lentils that are wrinkled or otherwise discolored or misshapen. Rinse lentils well in a sieve under cool water and set aside for now.
- Add Italian sausage to a large soup pot and cook and crumble over medium heat until fully cooked, around 9-10 minutes. Transfer sausage crumbles to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Carefully wipe out the grease from the pot to use again.
- Add olive oil to the now-empty soup pot set on the stove over medium heat. Once heated, add the onion, carrot, and celery and sauté for 6-8 minutes, until softening. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for 3 minutes, mashing the tomato paste into the vegetables as best you can during this time.
- Pour the wine into the pot and simmer for 1-2 minutes while deglazing the pot. Do this by using a wooden utensil to scrape up any stuck-on bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir these flavorful bits into the vegetable mixture.
- Add all dry seasonings to the pot (basil, oregano, parsley, thyme, crushed red pepper, garlic powder, black pepper) and stir to coat evenly.
- Pour in the broth and diced tomatoes and add the cooked sausage crumbles, whole chunk of Parmesan, bay leaves and lentils. Stir.
- Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat to a constant simmer. Partially cover the pot with a lid to prevent splatter, but leave it open as large of a crack as you can to allow steam to escape so the soup can reduce. Simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender and soft.
- At this time find and remove the bay leaves, then add the chopped kale. Simmer uncovered for 7-8 minutes or until the kale is tender.
- Stir the balsamic vinegar into the soup (start with 1 Tablespoon and see if you'd like more) and see if you like to add salt, then serve with crusty bread and/or additional grated or shredded Parmesan.
Notes
- Diced Tomatoes: Plain, fire-roasted, or any with Italian-style seasoning are good to use.
- Parmesan: A little over 1 ounce is fine. If you don't have a solid hunk of Parmesan, you can replace with ⅓ to ½ cup shredded Parmesan melted into the soup after the 45 minute simmer, then add more to taste.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is provided as an estimate. As it can vary due to many factors (brands used, quantities, etc.), we cannot guarantee its accuracy.
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