Zuppa Tuscana recipe, just like Olive Garden

For as long as I’ve known Jeff when he goes to Olive Garden he orders Zuppa Tuscana. The kids watched this and very soon started ordering Daddy Soup. One year for Jeff’s birthday, back when the internet was relatively new, or recipe blogs were, I looked up Zuppa Tuscana recipe Olive Garden in my browser and found a variation called Just Like Olive Garden Zuppa Tuscana recipe. Now, this was all in the pre-Pinterest days, so I have no clue what website that was because now I make our Zuppa Toscana recipe from my recipe card, which I liberally adapt it’s a tried and true recipe in my family. Whenever we get around to studying Italy for our geography lessons, I’m sure this recipe will be showing up for Cooking Around the World.

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Zuppa Tuscana recipe ingredients

I’ll have to update this later with a picture of my very messy recipe card, by the way I’ve discovered a photo album works great for recipe cards.

• 1 pound Italian sausage (original recipe calls for 1/2 pound, but we upped this)
• 3 slices bacon (I sometimes leave this out if I don’t have bacon handy)
• 3 cloves garlic minced (approximately, freely admit to greatly increasing this)
• 1 C shredded kale (I end up using about 2-3 leaves of kale, I just add until it seems right)
• 1 onion chopped
• 1-quart water (I use chicken broth, or whatever broth is currently in my freezer, makes for a better flavor)
• 2 T chicken bouillon (I sometimes put this in to up the flavor)
• 2-3 potatoes peeled and cubed (the original recipe calls for 1 potato and doesn’t peel it, but Jeff prefers the potato peeled)
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (my son accidentally made this and put in a couple of tablespoons, that was a little spicy)
• 1/3 cup whipping cream (I often pour in more than that, and just kinda pour in cream)

Zuppa Tuscana recipe

1. Brown the sausage, and then remove it from the pan. Cook the bacon, I like to pre-cut it to make it easier later on.
2. Cook the onions until softened, then add garlic and cook for another minute.

3. Stupid auto-number thing isn’t re-creating the number as soon as I start typing, so it’s no longer a list.  Actual step: Add broth and potato and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes are soft.

4. Once the potatoes are soft, add the sausage and bacon back in. Then add the kale, crushed red pepper, and simmer for about 4 minutes.  Add cream and stay on until it is heated back up.

Doesn’t that look amazing?

Or how about this shot?

I don’t usually think I take particularly good shots of the food I’ve cooked, but this zuppa tuscana picture turned out amazing!

More fun cooking around the world recipes that are often more inspired by

• Beef samosas (tasted good, looked terrible)
• Green tea cookie (EPIC FAIL)
• Chicken cordon bleu (more inspired, than correct)
• Beef Stroganoff (I was told this is very inspired, not actually there)
• pumpkin spice scone

Or, just want to see some of the recipes I’ve got pinned? Check out my recipes for busy Moms Pinterest board.