“A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.”– Abraham Maslow (Soup Quote)
I really love this hearty Kielbasa soup. Soup is such a great winter food. My husband forwarded an Alton Brown Kielbasa soup recipe to me to try, so I made it up in my Le Crueset Oven. This is a pretty basic and hearty bean and meat based soup that is quite easy to make. I love the addition of Kale to it. You can also use Spinach if Kale is not available, which is what I unfortunately had to do since my local store was out of it.
How to Make Kielbasa Soup
The soup recipe starts off with browning up some Kielbasa sausage. In hindsight, I think this recipe would be even better using smoked sausage instead. So you might give that a try.
There also is a lot of garlic in this soup, although it was milder than I thought with would be given that there are 8 cloves of garlic in it. I used making this as an opportunity to try out a new garlic rocker that a friend gave to us. It works pretty well to get a minced garlic. It doesn’t come out quite as thin as pressing does. Something the Kielbasa soup recipe does not have is onion, which I think I would add if making this again.
Be sure to soak the beans for this soup long enough. The recipe I had said at least 4 hours, but honestly, unless boiling them first before soaking, I would do 8 hours or overnight. I did about 9 hours. While the meat, beans and broth were cooking, I cut up a bunch of baby red potatoes. If I make this again, I think I’ll add carrots too.
The end result was not too shabby. I would have preferred to use Kale (I simply love Kale in soup), but the spinach substitution was just fine.
Serving Options
Serve the soup in wide bowls with some crusty bread. Yum!
- 14 ounces (1 package) kielbasa, sliced into ¼ inch thick pieces
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 8 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 1 pound red kidney beans, soaked overnight
- 2 quarts chicken broth
- 1 pound red potatoes cut into ½ inch cubes
- 6-8 ounces fresh kale torn into 1 inch pieces
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- Soak the beans for at least 8 hours or overnight
- Brown the kielbasa in a Dutch oven or soup pot and let sit over medium low heat for around 15 minutes, or until it has released most of its fat
- Remove the kielbasa and set aside
- Add the olive oil and cook the garlic in the fat for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly
- Add the beans and chicken broth and cook, covered, for 45 minutes.
- Stir in the potatoes, cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the kale to the pot, cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes
- Sprinkle the soup with the red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper and stir to combine
- Return the kielbasa to the pot and cook until heated through.
Leave a Reply