It was a dark and stormy night… so I decided to make my favorite creamy sausage and kale soup! For anyone else in New Jersey, I hope you are all staying safe and dry. Our lights keep flickering so I am hoping to get this post down before we completely lose power.

I have never written about this soup before, and today I decided to actually measure everything out and write this post. It’s super easy, and is kind of a copy-cat version of Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana. Not to mention, this creamy sausage and kale soup is the perfect companion to a good horror flick. (If you’re looking for a summer horror film, check out this post!)

Ingredients

• 5 strips of bacon
• 5 sausage links (sweet or hot; and you can even use chicken if you would like!)
• 5 russet potatoes
• 1 large yellow onion
• 5-6 garlic cloves (this can be altered to your liking)
• 8 c. chicken stock
• 1 tsp kosher saly
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 1/2 c. heavy cream (I never claimed this recipe was healthy!)
• 6 c. chopped kale

Directions

Dice the bacon small and cook in a large pot on medium until crispy. Remove from pot and set aside on a dish lined with paper towels. Remove the sausages from their castings. Add the sausage to the bacon drippings and break the meat apart as it is cooking. Once the sausage is completely cooked, set aside on the dish with the bacon.

Clean the potatoes and slice them into about 1/3 inch discs. (You can also dice the potatoes, if you prefer that.) Dice the yellow onion and also mince the garlic cloves. Add the potatoes, yellow onion, and garlic to the pot and sauté until the potatoes are slightly softened. Season the potatoes, onion, and garlic with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Once the potatoes are slightly softened, add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Once boiled, lower the heat and simmer for about ten minutes. After simmering, add the bacon and sausage back into the pot, along with the heavy cream and chopped kale.

Simmer for another ten minutes. Serve hot with garlic toasts.

And that’s it! Enjoy!