Italian Sausage and Cannellini Bean Soup

If there was a shoulder season for soup, it would be April. Though the sunny days are warm, those drizzly, April Shower days can be chilly and gray — prime soup time.

Making soup is my kind of cooking. Everything goes into a pot and all of the flavors simmer together. It’s a medium I am fluent in and one I feel most comfortable improvising with. This week, in an attempt to use up some cans of cannellini beans I decided to make a white bean and vegetable soup. It was going to be a vegan dinner, but at the last minute, I was in the mood for some Italian sausage I had in the fridge, so I cooked up and threw it in. If you’re looking for a more veggie forward soup, you can leave the sausage out.

Ingredients

• 2 19oz can cannellini beans

• 3 large carrots, chopped

• 1/2 large onion, diced

• 1 cup chopped spinach (or kale)

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 teaspoon rosemary

• 1 teaspoon thyme

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 3 cups vegetable broth

• Salt and pepper to taste

• optional Italian sausage

Instructions

1. In a large pot heat up olive oil and sauté diced onions and carrots (add optional Italian sausage at this time).

2. When onions and carrots are tender (and sausage is mostly cooked), add chopped spinach, garlic cloves, rosemary, thyme, cumin, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.

3. Stir to distribute seasoning. Once spinach is partially cooked down, add vegetable broth.

4. Cover the soup and simmer on low for 15 minutes.

5. Let cool and serve!

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