Eating out can get expensive, so why not see if you can make your favorite meal at home? This week, we are focusing on our favorite soup from Olive Garden! Yum! What’s not to love about Olive Garden? Olive Garden has breadsticks (unlimited breadsticks btw-score!), soup, salad, and pasta. At HartLand, one of our all time favorites is their Zuppa Toscana. Zuppa Toscana is one of Olive Garden’s famous soups and is good for any cold, rainy or snowy day at home!
What is Zuppa Toscana?
Zuppa Toscana is a broad term for “Tuscan soup.” Usually, the traditional Zuppa Toscana includes the following ingredients: kale, zucchini, cannellini beans, potatoes, celery, carrots, onion, tomato pulp, extra virgin olive oil, salt, powdered chili, toasted Tuscan bread, and rigatino.
Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana
According to Chowhound.com, Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana is the best soup Olive Garden has to offer. All of HartLand would have to agree with that statement, it is so good! The heart of the soup is Italian sausage, kale, onions, and potatoes. This soup has a creamy base and has the right amount of kick from pepper flakes.
Let’s Get To Cookin’
At HartLand, Zuppa Toscana is a meal we make often. This soup recipe is easy, not a huge mess, and most importantly, yummy! We want to note, you can make this recipe on the stovetop, but Brittany recently made this recipe in the Instant Pot. Brittany prefers the Instant Pot because it is made in one pot, quick, and easy clean-up. Below is the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana Recipe made in the Instant Pot. This recipe takes around 45 minutes and makes about 6 servings.
Ingredients
- 1 pound of Italian sausage
- 5 strips of bacon
- 2 cups chicken broth (beef works too)
- 4 cups water
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 4 medium-to-large red potatoes roughly cubed (leave skins on)
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 dash Italian seasoning
- 1 cup heavy/whipping cream
- 1 small bunch of kale torn into bite-size pieces (remove stems)
- Salt, pepper, and pepper flakes to taste
How to Make Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana
- Using a knife, cut the bacon into small pieces and add them to your Instant Pot.
- Take the italian sausage out of the packaging and put it into the Instant Pot. Press the sauté button and cook the sausages and bacon until they’re crispy and browned. Cook the meat as if you were doing it on the stovetop.
- While the sausage and bacon cook, chop the onion and potatoes, making sure to stir the bacon and sausages occasionally. Tip: We like to peel the potatoes before chopping them to avoid stringy potato skin in the soup.
- When the sausage and bacon are nicely browned and crispy, add in your chicken stock and water.
- Add the onion, potatoes, garlic, and Italian seasoning.
- Give the soup and stir and close the Instant Pot’s lid. Make sure the valve is set to “sealing”.
- Cook for 8 minutes on high pressure. The Instant Pot will take about 10 minutes or so to come up to pressure.
- Carefully do a quick pressure release and take off the lid.
- Add the cream and kale. Close the lid again and let the soup sit for another 5 minutes or so until the kale wilts (keep the Instant Pot off or on “keep warm”).
- Season with salt, pepper, and pepper flakes to your taste
- Enjoy!
Note: The same steps can be taken on the stovetop. Please keep in mind that since it will not be cooking in a pressure cooker, cook times may vary.
Try This Copycat Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana Recipe Yourself!
Well, there you have it! Your very own copycat recipe for Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana. There is only one thing missing, the fresh breadsticks. At HartLand, we like to get fresh baked bread from the local grocery store to dip into the soup. Now, nothing can replace Olive Garden’s breadsticks, but the fresh bread hits the spot too. As italians would say, buon appetito!
