Who doesn’t love The Olive Garden? Unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks, endless pasta, it’s a food lovers dream. I assure you this isn’t a sponsored post, but hey OG we could arrange that, eh?… nudge nudge wink wink. I’ve seen this zuppa toscana recipe floating around in many variations around the internet so I decided to take a whack at it. Of course we cut the cost and calories quite a bit because that’s just what we do at cheap-chef! And by we, I mean me, it’s just me here. Hi.

Look at how simple that is! Some green goodness and some greasy goodness as well, it’s  the best of both worlds. Some things you may notice right off the bat:

1) No bacon in this recipe! What?! I literally didn’t omit the bacon on purpose I just totally forgot. You can add bacon but honestly I didn’t miss it.

2) Half and half cream instead of whole cream.

3) The amount of Kale is greater than the amount of sausage. Kale > Sausage. This ratio is not correct or true to the OG recipe but c’mon people, you know me and my healthy recipe addiction.

Slow Cooker Zuppa Toscana Recipe

Ingredients

4 Italian sausages
1 tbsp olive oil
2 gloves garlic
1 onion
5 cups chicken broth
3 large russet potatoes
3-4 cups kale
1 1/2 cups half and half cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Add olive oil, chopped onions and garlic into slow cooker on high heat.
Remove sausages from casing and brown in skillet over medium heat while onions begin to sweat.
To your slow cooker, add in broth, cream, chopped potatoes, chopped kale and browned sausage bits.
Cook soup on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours.

Optional: Garnish with bacon and add salt and pepper to taste.

A large helping of this zuppa toscana soup rings in at around 550 calories (depending on what kind of sausage you use) and costs about $2.16/serving.

Recipe adapted from damndelicious.com

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I just want to end this slow cooker zuppa toscana recipe by getting some things off my chest, feel free to bypass this but I need to have this in writing.

I’m writing this recipe at 8:20 pm on a Thursday night. I had a long day at work, as I always do, and I’ve put off writing this recipe for a week. Every night it’s an excuse, and the excuse is generally “I’m tired.” But every day I go to work I think about my blog and how it’s being neglected. I started this blog exactly 2 years ago when I first realized how much I loved cooking (with God awful recipes by the way: Exhibit A, Exhibit B,) and how much I loved sharing my recipes. I love my blog, I love doing this, and I do have high hopes that cheap-chef will continue to grow, I just need to commit myself to writing even on the days I don’t feel like it: because this blog is my dream. So this is my promise  to myself: I will not neglect my dreams, I will continue to cook and continue to share! No more hiatuses for this girl.  Thank you all for your support.