This Italian sausage soup is made with juicy Italian sausage, loads of veggies, plenty of seasoning, and ditalini pasta in a tomato-based broth. A cozy soup for winter weather!
Hearty Italian Sausage Soup
There’s nothing more comforting than this Italian sausage soup recipe. It takes 30 minutes from start to finish and delivers so much flavor from the sausage, vegetables, and a tomato based broth. Small pasta noodles and fresh spinach add additional heartiness!
I love to garnish this Italian-inspired soup with freshly grated Parmesan and serve it with crusty bread. Italian wedding soup, one pot lemon chicken orzo soup, and easy lasagna soup are some of my other favorites.
Why I Love This Recipe
- Sausage soup is a one-pot recipe that can be made on the stove or in a crockpot.
- So much flavor coming from ingredients you probably have on hand.
Ingredients Notes
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- Mild Italian sausage: Ground Italian sausage can be mild or spicy. If you prefer some heat, you can swap it with spicy Italian sausage.
- Vegetables: Chopped onion, red bell pepper, celery, sliced carrots, and minced garlic.
- Seasoning: Salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. I typically use my homemade Italian seasoning since I usually have it on hand.
- Italian tomatoes: You can use a can of Italian tomatoes or regular diced tomatoes.
- Chicken broth and water: The water helps to dilute the broth and add more volume to the soup.
- Dry ditalini: Uncooked ditalini will be cooked in the soup, keeping it a one pot meal. If you want to add cooked ditalini in after you can do that too. Elbow macaroni noodles are another option as are any small pasta shapes you have in your pantry.
- Chopped spinach: Dark leafy greens for flavor and nutrients.
- For serving: Freshly grated Parmesan cheese and Italian herbs like parsley, or basil.
How to Make Italian Sausage Soup
Cook the sausage in a large pot over medium heat. Drain any excess grease, but whatever is left in there can be used to sauté the veggies.
Add the onion, celery, red peppers, and carrots and cook for 3 minutes. Then, add the garlic and seasoning and cook for another minute.
Stir in the broth, tomatoes, and water, and let the soup come to a simmer. Scrape the bottom of the pot as you stir just to lift up all the flavor from the bottom bits. Turn the heat to medium-high and add in the pasta.
Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the pasta is tender. Add the spinach, stir, and season to taste. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and your favorite fresh herbs.
Recipe Tips
- Ingredient variations can include things like swapping the spinach for kale or adding red pepper flakes for heat. You can also use turkey sausage or ground beef instead of Italian pork sausage if preferred.
- Add-in some extra fiber with a can of drained cannellini beans.
- Make this soup in the crock pot. I suggest cooking the sausage first for the best flavor. Add all the ingredients except the spinach into the slow cooker and then cook on high for 3-4 hours. Add the spinach during and cooked pasta during the last 15 minutes.
- Planning to freeze the ground sausage soup? Hold off on adding any pasta.
Storage
- Store: Leftover soup can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- Reheat: It will thicken as it sits in the fridge, so you may want to add a splash of broth to loosen it up as it simmers on the stove.
- To freeze: If you’re planning ahead, make the soup without adding the pasta. The texture of pasta changes once it thaws and becomes mushy. Freeze the soup in an airtight container for up to 2 months. Thaw it in the fridge overnight and once reheated add cooked pasta noodles.
More soup recipes to try include zuppa toscana, creamy tomato tortellini soup and chicken gnocchi soup.
More Favorite Soup Recipes
HUNGRY FOR MORE? Subscribe to my newsletter and follow on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram for all the newest recipes!
Italian Sausage Soup
Video
Ingredients
- 1 pound mild italian sausage
- 1 onion , chopped
- 1 red bell pepper , chopped
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1 cup sliced carrots
- 3-4 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 (15-ounce) can Italian tomatoes , or diced
- 32 ounces chicken broth
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup dry ditalini , or macaroni noodles
- 1-2 cups spinach , chopped
For serving: Fresh grated parmesan cheese, parsley or basil
Instructions
- In a large pot, cook sausage over medium heat. Drain fat and add onion, celery, red pepper and carrots. Cook for 3 minutes. Add garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper. Cook another minute.
- Stir in broth, tomatoes and water. Bring to a simmer.
- Turn heat to medium-high and then add in pasta. Cover and stir occasionally. Cook 10 minutes, or until tender. Add in spinach, stir then season to taste.
- Ladle into bowls and top with parmesan and fresh herbs if desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below!
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
2 stars is for the bad directions..30 mins from start to finish?? There’s no way onions, carrots and bell peppers are going to be cooked in 10 mins! I made mine in the crock pot and after over 4 hrs on high the carrots and onions were still crunchy. I’ll give 4 stars for the taste..2 tsp of Italian seasoning is a bit to strong.
Hi Cheryl, thank you for your opinion. On the stovetop over higher heat sauteing the vegetables cooks them faster. Of course always feel free to cook longer if that is your preference. Always adjust seasoning to preference as well.
You state 30 mins start to finish..it never says saute veggies..you really need to adjust the recipe. Im a seasoned cook but a newer crock pot cook and this needs to cook in crock pot longer also. Thx for your reply
Hi Cheryl, the original recipe is for the stovetop with an option to make it in the crockpot – hence why those directions for the crockpot are only in the notes. I would try it first on the stovetop if you are newer to crockpot cooking. Have a great day!
So good
Thanks for the review of the Italian sausage soup Susan!
This was absolutely delicious. The only changes that I made was to use spicy Italian sausage, cannellini beans and red pepper flakes. I cooked the pasta separate because I needed to make gluten free and regular pasta. We loved this recipe! Thank you!
Yum with that kick of spice! So glad you enjoyed it!
Soooooo rich and hearty.
We agree, Heidi! So glad you enjoyed the Italian sausage soup.
Delicious. I forgot add the spinach and added some heavy cream for richness. The flavors are phenomenal.
Thanks for the review Tanya!
So delicious! The only variation I used was substituting a can of fire- roasted tomatoes and I added 2 bay leaves. Definitely will make often!
Thanks for the tip Gloria! Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
So yummy, this will definitely go into rotation! I ended up adding about a cup extra of both broth and water. Also, I replaced the boxed pasta with homemade linguine noodles which came out to be around 2c. cut into smaller pieces.
Wow on the homemade noodles, I bet that made the soup even better! Thanks for the review of the Italian sausage soup.
Made this for the first time today, very quick and easy, and extremely flavorful! Can spice it up if needed, but tasty and delicious soup on a cold day! Thank you!!!
Thanks for the review Lynn!
Loved this recipe!! I love soup and this one is amazing. I did add some dark red kidney beans and extra spinach. This will be in our normal rotation. ♥️
Great idea on the beans! So glad you love the Italian sausage soup!
Some places it refers to ditalini or macaroni and others tortellini. Could you use either? I’m thinking tortellini would require longer to cook.
Sorry about the tortellini mention in the recipe card, this soup has only been tested with ditalini – recipe card is corrected. Macaroni noodles have similar cooking time so that is a great substitute. You are more than welcome to try it with tortellini and that would be delicious! It really depends if your tortellini is fresh, frozen or dried on the cooking time. Fresh is ready in about 3 minutes, frozen 3-5 minutes or dried up to 10 minutes. Let us know if you try!
Delicious and so easy to make!!
Thanks for the review of the Italian sausage soup Yasmin!
Awesome and easy, I made a batch and added some more ingredients. I added 1 lb of shredded rotisserie chicken, crushed tomatoes, 1 can of white Cannellini bean’s, so delicious! Make your pasta on the side and add what you need for that meal, that way you can freeze containers of the soup and make fresh pasta for each meal, Enjoy!
Thank you Jeff for sharing how you doubled it! So glad you enjoyed the Italian sausage soup.
This was so good and easy! Perfect for a cold day!
So glad you enjoyed the Italian sausage soup Annemarie! Agree, it’s so cozy to beat the winter chill.
This was easy and delicious! My husband said it’s a keeper
Love that! Thanks for the review of the Italian sausage soup Leslie!
I haven’t tried this yet but will. It looks delicious. My experience with keeping pasta in the soup is if there are leftovers, the pasta absorbs the liquid leaving the noodles mushy and less soup juice. I would cook pasta separately, add some soup mixture to the pasta to avoid sticking, then scoop out some pasta and add soup mixture for your serving. Refrigerate the pasta separately from the soup.
Thanks for the comment Cathy. That is what we recommend as well for the soup and storing.
Easy and delicious!
So glad you enjoyed the Italian sausage soup!
Smells delicious cooking & so good 0n a winter day
Total comfort in a bowl! Thanks for making the Italian sausage soup Anna!
Delicious! Easy to make too!
So glad you loved the Italian sausage soup Deb!
Such great flavors in this soup and so easy to make. – Alisha, recipe tester
It’s so cozy! Glad to hear you enjoyed the Italian sausage soup recipe!