Spicy Sausage and Cabbage Soup

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The cooler weather is here, finally!!!

I have to thank my co-worker for the inspiration here. It’s been windy and rainy outside, and I was craving some soup. But I wanted something different, something new.

She told me about some kielbasa and cabbage soup she made. As she described it, the cravings kicked in. So here we are!

I know this says spicy, but don’t let that scare you away! With a few simple tweaks you can make this not spicy as well. I’ll go over that as we go along. But for all the spicy loving peeps like me, this is perfect.

First bust out the ole Dutch oven and preheat it on medium heat with a nice drizzle of olive oil.

I decided to go with some smoked andouille sausage. I look for any reason to use andouille. If you want a little less spice, smoked kielbasa will still provide tons of delicious flavor. I used 3 links of sausage, each was 13.5 ounces, minus the pieces Maci and me snacked on…

Slice them up into about 1/2 inch slices or so, put them in a bowl and set aside.

Next mince 3-4 cloves of garlic, and dice up a medium red onion. Dump that into the Dutch oven with the sausage and stir. Let it sauté over medium heat while you prepare everything else, stirring occasionally.

Now chop up 3 serrano peppers. I left the seeds in to give a nice little kick. If you want to avoid the spiciness, you can omit these. But the flavor these provide is sooo good! Dump those in the Dutch oven along with 2 medium carrots diced up. Stir them in and let those go with everything else.

I grabbed some leeks from the grocery store. They really add nice flavor to this soup. Chop off the leaves at the end and peel back some of the white. You really want to get down to more of the greener center before you go to dicing. Dice up 1 large stalk then stir it into the Dutch oven as well.

Now before we go any further give everything a nice stir until mixed evenly.

Next get the head of green cabbage and chop it in half. When you chop up the cabbage still leave it in decent sized pieces, but try to get as much of the core out as possible. You want it to be mostly leaves and not the harder center chunks.

Everything should be coming along nicely in the Dutch oven now. I decided to go with some chicken bone broth. I usually make my own, but I didn’t have any on hand. This brand was really great though!

Go ahead and carefully dump all the chopped cabbage into the Dutch oven on top of everything else. Pour in the broth until its about an inch from the top. Don’t worry, the cabbage will shrink as it cooks. I was able to fit both 32 ounce cartons in there, but it was just a bit too much. Top it with some sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Turn the heat up to medium high until it starts to boil. Now add 1 cup of Carolina Treet and mix evenly. Back the heat down to medium and let it simmer uncovered for 25-30 minutes.

I am really happy with this soup. It’s loaded with flavor and the perfect cure for nasty weather.

Now tear off a chunk of Italian bread and enjoy!