COOK: Zuppa Toscana – Sausage, Potato, Kale and White Bean Tuscan Soup Recipe
- Why should I can or freeze this soup?
- Zuppa Toscana Recipe Ingredients
- Why do I need to pre-soak the beans?
- Kitchen equipment needed for this recipe
- How to Make & Can Zuppa Toscana
- Storage and Pantry Tips for Canning Zuppa Toscana
- Zuppa Toscana – Sausage, Potato, Kale & White Bean Tuscan Soup Recipe
This Tuscan-style Zuppa Toscana, a hearty sausage, potato, kale, and white bean soup recipe, is a hearty and delicious meal-prep work-horse. It was developed to be safe for pressure canning, but you don’t have to can it!
This versatile zuppa toscana recipe is great for feeding a big family gathering, to meal prep & fill your freezer with easy winter meals, or pressure can it and stock your pantry with hearty homemade convenience food. Add this one to your favorites list!
You can make a big pot of this soup and skip the trip to Olive Garden… I haven’t actually had their version, so I can’t say whether this is a strictly accurate copycat recipe but our family loves it! I can promise that your soup made from scratch will be more wholesome than whatever they’re serving, and definitely better for your budget. If you aren’t canning it, you can also add heavy cream and chopped bacon to more closely mimic the restaurant-style rich & creamy sausage, potato, and kale soup.
Serve your big pot of homemade zuppa toscana right away, keep it warm in a crock pot for easy entertaining, or you can chill or freeze it for later. If you want to make a lot of changes to the recipe as written, or to add dairy, you’ll want to refrigerate or freeze your soup, or add the other ingredients after canning when you’re ready to serve it.
Why should I can or freeze this soup?
Making big batches of soup like this one at home saves a lot of time, as you can cook multiple meals at once and then they’re ready to eat whenever you want to open a jar for an easy lunch or dinner. If you can or freeze it, you’ll have less waste and won’t have to eat the same thing for several meals in a row!
Canned homemade soup is ready to heat up right away without defrosting (or without hours of chopping and simmering to make it from scratch each time). But filling up your Souper Cubes (or your preferred freezer meal prep containers) is a good idea if you don’t have a pressure canner or are intimidated by the process.
If you don’t want to can it (or don’t have a pressure canner), just make a batch and simmer it to finish on your stove-top. You can also saute the sausage and vegetables then transfer them to your crock pot or Instant Pot to cook it for even more hand-off prep.
But, if you do have a pressure canner, follow along with us below and we’ll walk you through putting up 7 pantry-ready quarts or 14 pints of this delicious homemade Italian-style sausage, potato and kale soup!
It’s pretty simple, and safe as long as you follow the guidelines and stick to the recipe (though as always, can at your own risk, even though that risk is low as long as you have good practices).
Canning your own homemade soups may sound like a lot of work, if you already have the right kind of canner, it’s one of the easiest ways to fill your pantry on a budget. It will take a few hours from start to finish (counting the bean soaking time), but it’s so nice to have all these shelf-stable ready to heat-and-eat meals on your pantry shelves.
Stocking your pantry or freezer with a bunch of jars of this home canned hearty sausage, kale, and potato soup is such great peace of mind. It’s cheaper than buying prepared foods or take-out, and batch cooking them like this is a huge time-saver!
Zuppa Toscana Recipe Ingredients
Dried beans:
I use Cannelloni or Great Northern Beans in this soup, although navy beans or chickpeas are a good substitute.
You can safely substitute other types of beans from the list of beans from our post about canning beans though if you’d like (not lentils or split peas, among a few others… check the bean canning post if you aren’t sure).
If you aren’t canning the soup recipe, you can use any beans that you like. I still recommend pre-soaking or pre-cooking them, or even substitute commercially canned beans for a short-cut. If you are canning the soup, you must pre-soak the dried beans (we’ll talk more about why in the next section).
Fresh sausage or ground pork:
Use bulk pork Italian sausage here, or ground pork plus additional seasonings (fennel, garlic, red pepper, and other Italian seasonings as you like to taste… just no sage, which turns bitter when canned).
You can also use sliced link Italian or other fresh sausage or remove the casings to make loose sausage. Crumble and brown the meat before adding the other ingredients. Make sure there are no added starches, binders, or other ingredients in the sausage that aren’t safe for canning (starches like breadcrumbs or rice, for example, or cheese).
You can substitute any ground meat for the pork that has a tested USDA canning time guideline listed (sorry, that means no ground chicken or turkey if you’re playing by the rules) as long as you crumble and cook it before adding to the soup recipe.
Onion:
You can use yellow or white onion here (red or sweet are also safe to substitute, though the flavor profile is different).
I used one jumbo onion to yield about 2.5 cups, or 12 oz by weight. Remove the root end, peel, and cut into medium dice.
Celery:
If you are following the USDA soup guidelines, celery is not technically allowed, as there is no solo-processing time listed. This is more of a taste/texture issue for canning just celery, from what I have read than strictly a safety issue.
I’m following guidance in bulletin FNH-00065, released by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks extension service for safely canning mixed vegetable and meat soups that says you can safely use both diced onion and celery with their brothy soup guidelines (which I followed to write and can this recipe).
Potatoes:
You can use any washed, peeled, and large diced potatoes here. I prefer to use waxy potatoes like red or Yukon Golds, which hold their shapes better when canned, but you can substitute russets if you prefer or if that’s what you have on hand.
Kale:
If you can get it, use the dark green Lacinato (also known as Tuscan kale, or “dinosaur” kale because of the pebbled pattern of the leaves which resembles dino skin). You can also substitute other kale like regular green or even Red Russian Kale.
Wash the kale well to remove any grit or other stow-aways, and strip out the tough stems. If you like, you can finely chop the tender narrow end of the stems and saute this with the sausage and onion for more fiber in your soup. Compost or discard the very tough and woody base ends of the stems.
Stock or broth:
Use a good quality homemade or store-bought broth here. I used a mixture of home-canned turkey broth and chicken bouillon base with hot water.
You may need more than four quarts, depending on how your other ingredients cook down to top up the jars if you are canning the soup. You can always make up the difference with hot water or more stock/bouillon at the end when you are packing the jars. I like to have a kettle of hot water ready just in case!
If you aren’t canning your soup, you can add milk or cream to the recipe at the end for a creamy Tuscan potato soup. Do NOT add dairy products to your soup before canning (you can add them when you open and reheat the jars just before serving if you like).
Dried herbs & seasonings:
This Italian sausage and potato soup is seasoned with dried oregano or marjoram, rosemary, a pinch of fennel seed (especially if you used ground pork instead of sausage), garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt and freshly ground black pepper. You can adjust the seasonings to taste (using only canning-safe dried herbs & spices if you are canning your soup).
Do not add sage if you are canning this soup (it becomes bitter in the pressure canner- add this to your beans when you reheat them if you want to use this herb).
Why do I need to pre-soak the beans?
Soaking and then rinsing removes enzymes and harmful lectins that cause stomach-upset and gas or that may even impede nutrient absorption. It’s also critical to re-hydrate the beans before briefly simmering and packing them into jars for food-safety and quality reasons if you are canning this soup.
Soaked beans are less likely to split while canning, but more importantly, it’s a safety issue. You don’t have to do an overnight soak (though this is the method I prefer)… we’ll walk through both overnight and quick-soak methods below!
It also ensures that you don’t overfill the jars, as beans swell a LOT while re-hydrating and can easily break your jars or absorb all of the soup broth if they aren’t well-hydrated before packing.
But most importantly, soaking the beans first ensures that your canned soup mixture with beans reaches a safe temperature in the center of the jars, sufficient to kill dangerous pathogens (like botulism or other spoilage baddies like bacteria and molds) that may be in your dried beans or other ingredients.
Heat transmits differently through dry versus wet materials, and hydrating your beans before canning them makes them less dense and easier for the processing heat to penetrate and move through the jars so that they are safe to store and eat.
All of the tested canning recipe times available are verified for soaked beans. Canning dried beans without pre-soaking them is a gamble with your family’s health (botulism can be fatal). It’s not worth saving a few minutes!
Kitchen equipment needed for this recipe
Large Stockpot:
You’ll need a large, heavy bottomed stockpot or 6-8 quart dutch oven to make the soup, and a medium-sized pot to pre-soak and simmer your beans.
Other Tools:
You’ll want a large ladle & a sturdy spoon or spatula to stir & portion out the soup. A large colander or wire strainer is helpful for washing and draining the beans, as is a sharp chef’s knife and large cutting board for prepping your vegetables, and a kitchen scale and/or measuring cups and spoons.
If you are canning this Zuppa Toscana soup, you’ll also want a jar funnel & jar tongs to help fill and move the hot jars and a clean, lint-free cloth or paper towel to clean the rims.
Canning Jars & New Lids:
You can can your beans in quarts, pints, or smaller jars. Quarts take 75 minutes, and pints and smaller jars process for 60 minutes. If you can a mixed batch of jar sizes, process the whole batch for the longer amount of time (75 minutes for any jars over 16 oz).
Do not can soup in half-gallon jars (which will not fit in most pressure canners and do not have safe processing times tested for anything but certain fruit juices). Don’t fill the soup jars more than half-full with solids before topping them up with liquid, or the required processing time changes.
Pressure Canner:
You absolutely must use a pressure canner to safely can low-acid foods like this Zuppa Toscana recipe.
If you don’t have a pressure canner, you can finish the soup on the stove-top or in a dutch oven, crock pot, or Instant Pot, then refrigerate or freeze your cooked soup. You can use an Instant Pot to pressure cook the soup, but not to can jars of finished soup!
Do not try to water-bath can low-acid foods like beans, meat, or most vegetables!
You also can’t safely can this soup in an Instant Pot. They do not reliably build up enough pressure to safely can foods, especially low-acid foods like beans, meat, mushrooms, and veggies that require consistent pressure and long processing times. Remember, “sealed” does not mean safe, just that you created a vacuum in the jar. Just because your jars are sealed, does not mean that they were processed long enough or at the proper pressure to be safe.
Botulism isn’t worth the risk… always pressure can low-acid foods like meats and vegetables in a suitable pressure canner.
I love my big All-American pressure canner, but any pressure canner that is large enough to hold at least four quart jars and that has a pressure weight and/or a tested pressure gauge will work (although you may need to adjust the batch size for your canner, or can the sauce in several batches).
For more information about canning basics and equipment, check out our introductory article:
CANNING: Equipment Guide- What Do I Need to Start Canning at Home?
How to Make & Can Zuppa Toscana
pre-soak your dried beans:
- Pick through and rinse your dried white beans (or acceptable substitute) thoroughly. Stir the pot of water and discard any hollow beans & hulls that float.
- Drain the rinse water and then refill and soak the beans using one of the following methods:
- Overnight Soak Method: Soak rinsed beans in a large pot of water with plenty of room for the beans to expand (the pot should be no more than 1/2 to 3/5ths full of dried beans before adding water). Cover and let soak in a cool place for 12-18 hours (refrigerate if your kitchen is hot).
- Quick Soak Method: Proceed as for the overnight soak, but bring the pot of beans and water to a boil on medium-high heat. Boil for two minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let soak for at least an hour.
No-Soak Method:Just kidding! Rebel canners might tell you this is fine, but PLEASE do not do this. It isn’t safe to can unsoaked dry beans or peas either on their own or in this soup recipe, and even if it were, it gives unpredictable and poor results with unevenly re-hydrated beans, or even broken jars. If you don’t have time to soak overnight, do the quick soak method or can the soup tomorrow (after soaking them today)!
simmer the beans:
- After your dried beans have soaked overnight (or heated and quick-soaked for one hour), drain and rinse them gently.
- Refill the pot with clean water to cover the beans by at least 2″.
- Bring to a low boil over medium heat, gently stirring periodically so they don’t scorch on the bottom of the pan.
- Simmer the beans for thirty minutes before adding them to the other ingredients… you can do this while you start on the next steps to make the soup to save time.
make the sausage, potato, white bean, and kale soup:
- Wash, peel, and dice all vegetable ingredients, and measure your herbs & other dry seasonings. If you are using bouillon or stock base instead of stock or bone broth, mix this with hot or boiling water and stir to combine.
- Crumble and saute the Italian sausage or ground pork in a large pot over medium heat (or a large Instant Pot using the “saute” setting. When the sausage begins to brown and is cooked through, add the diced onion and celery and small diced kale stems (if you are including these).
- Stir and sweat for a few minutes, then add the chopped garlic and dried seasonings, and saute for a few more minutes.
- Add the peeled & diced potato along with the simmered white beans and their liquid. Stir, and add the washed & chopped kale.
- Add the chicken or vegetable stock, or the pre-mixed bouillon broth, and bring up to a simmer on medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes.
- To can the soup, proceed immediately to the next section. Otherwise, you can continue to simmer the soup on low heat until the beans and potatoes are tender (about 25-30 minutes, depending on which type of beans you used, or use the “soup” setting on your Instant Pot, adjust seasonings as needed, and serve hot).
- Keep soup hot until you are ready to serve it, or chill rapidly and refrigerate or freeze. Store the fully cooked Zuppa Toscana soup in the fridge for up to a week, or portion and freeze for quick meals in a hurry without canning.
prep pressure canner & jars (skip these steps if you are not canning your soup):
- Wash your canning jars and new canning lids in hot soapy water and rinse well.
- If you are using reusable lids (like Tattler or Harvest Guard, or Weck jars), follow manufacturer directions to prepare lids and rings.
- Fill your pressure canner with the recommended amount of water (check your canner manual, but at least several inches for this long processing time) and preheat it.
- Preheat the jars in the canner on low-medium heat while you prepare the soup, or keep them hot in your oven, dishwasher, or using your preferred method.
pack soup in jars:
- Using a jar funnel and a slotted spoon, fill your quart or pint jars NO MORE THAN HALF FULL with the solids from the soup mixture.
- Try to get roughly even amounts of the potatoes, sausage, beans, and greens into the jars.
- Divide the hot soup broth among the jars, leaving 1″ of headspace below the rim at the top of the jar.. If you don’t have enough cooking liquid, top each of the jars up the rest of the way with boiling water or more hot broth or stock.
- Debubble the jars with a small spatula, chopstick, or butter knife to release any trapped air bubbles. Top up with additional liquid if necessary.
- Wipe the jar rims with a clean, damp cloth or paper towel to remove any residue that could prevent your jars from sealing properly.
- Top with new canning lids (or properly prepared reusable lids). Tighten the rings finger-tight (or according to manufacturer directions for reusable lids).
pressure-can the Zuppa Toscana soup:
- Place the hot jars in the preheated pressure canner and seal the canner lid. Heat on medium heat. Vent the canner for 10 minutes once it starts steaming, then add the weight and bring the canner up to pressure over medium low heat.
- Process at 10 lbs of pressure (weighted canner) or 11 lbs (dial gauge). Adjust pressure as needed for your altitude over 1000 sf (15 lbs with weighted canner, consult altitude chart for dial gauge).
- Reset processing timer to zero if canner pressure drops below minimum at any point during processing.
- Process for a full 60 minutes for pints, or 75 minutes for quarts or mixed batches of pints and quarts.
- Turn off the heat after the processing time is up. Let the canner rest undisturbed until the pressure returns to zero- do not remove the weight early to vent the steam faster.
- As soon as the pressure releases completely, carefully remove the canner lid.
- Wait another couple minutes, then remove the jars with jar tongs or hot pads, and place them on a towel or cooling rack.
- Cover the hot jars with a towel if there are cold drafts.
- Leave undisturbed overnight or for at least 8-12 hours when the jars are fully cooled.
Storage and Pantry Tips for Canning Zuppa Toscana
- After your jars of sausage, potato, kale, and bean soup have completely cooled (at least 8 hours), remove the jar rings, check for seals, and wash the outside of the jars with warm, soapy water.
- Refrigerate any jars of canned soup that did not seal and use those jars promptly. You could reprocess them with new lids within 24 hours of the first processing.
- However, since the canning time is so long, the reprocessed jars will lose quality & nutrients, and the flavor will suffer. I prefer to refrigerate any unsealed jars of soup and use them within a week rather than reprocess.
- You can also transfer your soup to freezer-safe containers and freeze for up to 6 months (soup that is properly frozen will be safe to eat longer but may lose quality and pick up off-flavors or freezer-burn).
- Label the sealed jars and store in a cool, dark place. For best quality, enjoy most home-canned goods within 12-18 months, although they will be safe to eat for much longer while the seals are intact. Nutritional value and flavor declines slightly with longer storage (or improper storage conditions).
- Discard the contents of any canned jars of soup that lose their seals in storage, smell off, are bubbling, or hiss when opened, and sterilize the jar before using them again.
Zuppa Toscana – Sausage, Potato, Kale & White Bean Tuscan Soup Recipe
Equipment
- large pot
- glass canning jars, rings, and new lids
- canning funnel (optional but helpful)
Ingredients
- 1½ cups dried cannellini or white beans (dry measurement) (soak beans overnight or quick soak- soaking is NOT OPTIONAL for canning & recommended otherwise)
- 4 quarts chicken or vegetable broth (substitute water and 2-3 tbsp bouillon base or powder)
- 1 lb bulk Italian sausage (substitute chopped link Italian sausage)
- 1¼ lb waxy potatoes (red or Yukon Gold) (washed, peeled, & diced, about 1 quart)
- 1 bundle Lacinato or "dinosaur" kale (washed, de-stemmed, & chopped. substitute other kale if necessary, about 2-3 cups loosely packed or one small-medium bundle)
- 12 oz onion, medium diced (2 ½ cups or one large onion)
- 6 oz celery stalks, medium diced (1 ¼ cups or 2-3 stalks)
- 3-6 cloves fresh garlic substitute 1-2 tsp dried garlic powder
- 1 tbsp salt or to taste
- 1 tsp dried oregano or marjoram
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes optional
- ¾ tsp black pepper freshly ground if possible
- ¾ tsp ground fennel seed optional
Instructions
clean & pre-soak your beans:
- Pick through your dried beans, checking for any small stones, twigs, or other foreign matter and rinse your dried beans thoroughly. Stir the pot of water and discard any hollow beans that float (these may have pest damage or be empty hulls).
- Drain the rinse water and then refill and soak your pot of beans using one of the following methods:
- Overnight Soak Method: Soak rinsed beans in a large pot of water with plenty of room for the beans to expand (the pot should be no more than 1/2 to 3/5ths full of dried beans before adding water). Cover and let soak in a cool place for 12-18 hours (refrigerate if your kitchen is hot).
- Quick Soak Method: Proceed as for the overnight soak, but bring the pot of beans and water to a boil on medium-high heat. Boil for two minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let soak for at least an hour.
simmer the soaked beans:
- After your beans have soaked overnight (or heated and quick-soaked), drain and rinse them gently. Refill the pot with clean water to cover the beans by at least 2″.
- Bring to a low boil over medium heat, gently stirring periodically so they don’t scorch on the bottom of the pan.
- Simmer the beans for thirty minutes before combining them with other soup ingredients.
prep pressure canner & jars (skip if freezing or serving immediately):
- Wash your canning jars and new canning lids in hot soapy water and rinse well.
- If you are using reusable lids (like Tattler or Harvest Guard, or Weck jars), follow manufacturer directions to prepare lids and rings.
- Fill your pressure canner with the recommended amount of water (check your canner manual, but at least several inches for this long processing time) and preheat it.
- Preheat the jars in the canner on low-medium heat while the beans simmer (see next step), or keep them hot in your oven, dishwasher, or using your preferred method.
make the soup:
- Wash, peel, and dice all vegetable ingredients, and measure your dry seasonings. If you are using bouillon or stock base instead of stock, mix this with hot or boiling water.
- Crumble and saute the Italian sausage in a large pot over medium heat. When the sausage begins to brown and is cooked through, add the diced onion and celery and small diced kale stems (if you are including these).
- Stir and sweat for a few minutes, then add the chopped garlic and dried seasonings, and saute for a few minutes. Add the peeled & diced potato along with the simmered white beans and their liquid. Stir, and add the washed & chopped kale.
- Add the chicken or vegetable stock, or the pre-mixed bouillon broth, and bring up to a simmer on medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes.
if you are NOT canning the soup (otherwise skip to next sections):
- To prepare & serve or freeze the soup immediately, continue to simmer over low heat until the beans and potatoes are tender, another 25-35 minutes, or use the soup setting on your Instant Pot.
- You can finish the Zuppa Toscana soup with cream, a sprinkle of Parmesan, or other dairy *only* if you are not canning the soup. Otherwise, add any of these (if desired) when reheating after opening the jars if you want a richer dish.
to can the soup, first pack the jars:
- Using a jar funnel and ladle or slotted spoon, fill your quart or pint jars NO MORE THAN HALF FULL with the "solids" from the soup. Divide evenly among 7 quart or 14-15 pint jars.
- Divide the hot cooking broth among the jars, leaving 1″ of headspace below the rim at the top of the jar.. If you don’t have enough cooking liquid, top the jars up with more boiling water, broth, or hot stock.
- Debubble the jars with a small spatula, chopstick, or butter knife. Top up with additional liquid if necessary to maintain proper 1" headspace.
- Wipe the jar rims with a clean, damp cloth or paper towel.
- Top with new canning lids (or properly prepared reusable lids). Tighten the rings finger-tight (or according to manufacturer directions).
pressure-can the soup:
- Place the hot filled soup jars in the preheated pressure canner and seal the lid. Heat on medium heat. Vent the canner for 10 minutes once it starts steaming, then add the weight and bring the canner up to pressure over medium low heat.
- Process at 10 lbs of pressure (weighted canner) or 11 lbs (dial gauge). Adjust pressure as needed for your altitude over 1000 sf (15 lbs with weighted canner, consult altitude chart for dial gauge).
- Reset processing timer to zero if canner pressure drops below minimum at any point during processing.
- Process for a full 60 minutes for pint jars, or 75 minutes for quarts or mixed batches of pints and quarts.
- Turn off the heat after the processing time is up. Let the canner rest undisturbed until the pressure returns to zero- do not remove the weight early to vent the steam faster.
- As soon as the pressure releases completely, carefully remove the canner lid.
Cool, check seals, and store:
- Wait another couple minutes, then remove the jars with jar tongs or hot pads, and place them on a towel or cooling rack. Cover jars with a towel if there are cold drafts.
- Leave undisturbed overnight or for at least 8-12 hours when the jars are fully cooled.
- Remove the rings, check for seals, and wash the jars with warm, soapy water.
- Refrigerate any jars of canned soup that did not seal and use those jars promptly. You could reprocess them with new lids within 24 hours of the first processing. You can also transfer to freezer-safe containers and freeze.
Notes
Nutrition
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