Creamy Italian Sausage Soup | Cookies & Cups

Reasons to Love This Creamy Sausage Soup Recipe

• One-pot. Some soup recipes call for boiling the pasta separately, but not this one. You sauté, simmer, and serve this creamy sausage soup, pasta and all, from the same pot. 
• Easy ingredients. You’ll find everything you need to make this creamy sausage soup in your local grocery store aisles. It doesn’t require anything fancy, and ingredients like zesty Italian sausage and fire-roasted tomatoes pack this soup full of flavor.
• Make it ahead. The only time I recommend keeping the pasta separate is if you plan on freezing the soup (more on this later). But, yes, you can prep a big batch of this sausage soup in advance and store it for later meals. I’ll show you the best way to freeze it so that it’s fresh and creamy when reheated.

Ingredients You’ll Need

I almost always have ground sausage in the freezer, ready to thaw and use in recipes like my creamy Italian sausage pasta and Tuscan sausage dip. This sausage soup needs only a handful of other easy ingredients, which I’ll share below. Scroll down to the recipe card for the printable ingredients list, amounts, and details.

• Olive Oil – Or another oil for sautéeing, like avocado oil.
• Onion – Yellow or white onion, diced. You can also use shallots.
• Italian Sausage – Spicy or mild ground Italian sausage, whichever you’d like. If you buy sausage links, you’ll need to take the meat out of the casings. You can make this soup with pork, turkey, or chicken sausage.
• Garlic – Freshly minced. You can substitute 1 teaspoon of garlic paste per fresh clove of garlic if you need to.
• Seasoning – I use a blend of Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. Feel free to omit the red pepper flakes if you’re not a fan of spice.
• Chicken Broth – Use your favorite store-bought chicken broth or homemade chicken stock. You could also use beef broth for a deeper flavor or vegetable stock. 
• Canned Tomatoes – I like to use fire-roasted tomatoes for depth of flavor, but regular canned tomatoes will also work. Leave the tomatoes undrained.
• Ditalini Pasta – This is a small, tube-shaped pasta. You can substitute ditalini with any small-cut pasta you’d like. Other good options are orzo, elbow macaroni, or pastina.
• Parmesan Cheese – Freshly grated parmesan, or another sharp cheese, like pecorino, is best.
• Cream Cheese – Bring the cream cheese to room temperature. If needed, sour cream, Greek yogurt, or heavy cream are good substitutes.
• Milk – Any kind. Use half-and-half for an even richer soup.

How to Make Creamy Italian Sausage Soup

This Italian sausage soup is the only excuse I need to crack out my Dutch oven on a weekend afternoon! Otherwise, you can make it in a heavy soup pot. Follow the steps below. You’ll find the full printable recipe in the recipe card after the post.

• Sauté. First, sauté the diced onion with oil. Once softened, add the ground sausage and cook until browned.
• Add seasonings. Next, stir in the garlic, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and cook that up for a minute so that the garlic gets fragrant.

• Put it all together. Now, pour in the broth and canned tomatoes. Bring the pot to a boil, stir in the pasta, and lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often, until the pasta is al dente.

• Make it creamy. Lastly, over low heat, melt in the parmesan and cream cheese, then add the milk. Give the sausage soup a final seasoning to taste. If you’d like, sprinkle in freshly chopped parsley, and serve with extra parmesan.

Make This Soup Ahead

This Italian sausage soup is easy to prepare in advance, with a few minor tweaks to the recipe that ensure it’s just as rich and creamy when you reheat it. If you’re planning to freeze your sausage soup, this is my tried-and-true method:

• Prep. Prepare the soup as directed right up until the steps where you add the pasta and dairy. 
• Freeze. Instead, cool the soup completely, and freeze it for up to 2 months. Thaw the soup or reheat it from frozen.
• Reheat. When you’re ready to serve, take the cream cheese out of the fridge and freshly grate the parmesan while the soup reheats on the stovetop. Add the pasta, boil until it’s al dente, and then proceed to lower the heat and add in your parmesan, cream cheese, and milk to finish the soup.

Of course, if you really wanted to freeze the finished soup with the pasta, dairy, and all, I can’t stop you! However, I find the texture isn’t the same when it’s thawed and reheated, as the dairy tends to split and the pasta gets a bit mushy. Refrigerating is the better option. See the Storing and Reheating section below.

Recipe Tips

• Avoid an oily soup. Depending on how fatty your ground sausage is, remember to drain off any excess grease before you add the seasoning and continue with the recipe. Too much leftover fat makes the broth oily.
• Stir often. Keep stirring while the pasta cooks in the soup, so that it doesn’t become stuck to the bottom.
• Add the dairy over low heat. Make sure that the pot is set over low heat when you add the parmesan cheese, cream cheese, and milk (or cream). Do NOT let the soup boil once the dairy is added, or it might split and curdle.
• Change up the pasta. You can replace the small ditalini pasta in this sausage soup with whichever kind you have on hand. I also have a creamy sausage tortellini soup that you can try.
• Make it spicy. If you’d prefer a spicier soup, add more chili flakes or use hot Italian sausage.
• More add-ins. Go ahead and bulk up this Italian sausage soup with kale, potatoes, carrots, and any veggies you’d like. Sauté harder veggies alongside the onions, and add quick-cooking greens, like kale or spinach, towards the end of cooking.

Storing and Reheating

• Refrigerate. Store the leftover Italian sausage soup covered in the fridge and reheat within 5 days. Since this soup contains quite a lot of dairy, it doesn’t freeze well. See the Make Ahead section earlier for my favorite way to freeze the soup in advance, without the dairy. 
• Reheat. Warm the soup over medium-low heat until it’s hot throughout, taking care that it doesn’t boil.