Tuscan Tortellini Soup

Tuscan Tortellini Soup is an easy weeknight recipe that can be done in just 20 minutes.

Soup has become one of our favorite family meals. As a single man, my husband never ate soup. I however loved soup. Soup is a great way to stretch meat if you are on a budget, it’s often healthy, nourishing and typically inexpensive to make. I used to make what I called “throw down” soups. If I had a bunch of random veggies left from other meals at the end of the week, I’d throw them in some chicken stock with a bit of rice or pasta and some meat and make a soup.

These days, soup has become a regular weekly staple on our menu. My husband and kids have grown fond if it. I especially love soup during the Fall and Winter. There is something cozy about a hot. steamy bowl of soup. Of course, I love to make homemade bread with it. Even a simple white bread is good. You can get my recipes for simple white sandwich bread here. It is wonderful out of the oven with some butter.

What You Need

There are no special tools needed for this soup. All you need is a stockpot and the best thing about this recipe is that it is a one pot meal. You don’t need to worry about dirtying multiple dishes. Thats another reason why I love this meal for weeknights.

As far as ingredients go, the recipe is simple. For spices, you’ll need garlic and Italian seasoning. Then you’ll need tortellini. You can use fresh, dried or frozen. It doesn’t matter. Fresh will always have the most flavor and be the quickest to cook. I keep frozen tortellini in my freezer all the time for making soups or for a quick meal.

I recommend using chicken stock or bone broth. In the past, I prefer to make my own stock and bone broth and freeze it for soups, but canned broth is perfectly fine. When I was creating this recipe, I tried various adaptations of tomato base. I tried tomato paste, tomato sauce and condensed tomato soup. If landed on tomato sauce being the better ingredient for this dish. When combined with the stock the condensed soup and tomato sauce become too diluted.

Also when cutting your kale, be sure to remove the stems which are tough. Trim the leaves only and cut them small some they aren’t problematic on the spoon.

Substitutions

One question I get a lot is substitutions. In a pinch you can dissolve some bouillon in water to make a stock, but I don’t think it is as good as actual stock. But if you’re in a bind, you can do it. The recipe also calls for heavy whipping cream. The cream tempers some of the acidity of the tomato. I highly recommend cream over milk for a richer, creamier broth. You add more cream if you like, however, if you add a lot of cream it might give it a slightly pink appearance which you may not like.

This recipe calls for Italian sausage. As a lighter substitution, you can use turkey Italian sausage. Brown your meat in your stockpot and deglaze with your broth.

Also if you don’t have Italian seasoning you can make your own using dried spices:

• 3 tbsp dried basil
• 3 tbsp oregano
• 3 tbsp parsley
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp rosemary, crushed
• ¼ tsp crushed red pepper (optional)

Serving and Storing

We almost never have left overs, but if you do you can store it in an air tight container for 1-2 days. I don’t recommend storing it longer than that just because the kale doesn’t hold up too well. I have never tried freezing it, so I’m uncertain how it will freeze. If you try it, let me know in the comments.

Looking for other Soups?

Before you leave, try some of my other soup recipes.

• Italian Wedding Soup
• Zuppa Toscana
• Cajun Bean Soup