Italian Orzo Soup with Sausage and Spinach

I'm at it again.

I'm making soup.

Most Sundays during the winter I make a big pot and we eat it throughout the day and then eat the leftovers, if there are any, for supper Monday night. It's become a little tradition for us. Since we have a blizzard headed our way, I made soup on Sunday for tomorrow. Just prepped everything but the pasta. I'll cook that up separately and we'll be good to go. Thankfully I have a gas stove, so if we lose power, I can still use the stove top.

A few weeks ago I made this Italian Wedding Soup -----> click. Last week I made a little u-turn and turned it into Italian Orzo Soup with little sausage bites in it. So yummy!

The hardest part about making this soup was rolling the sausage into little balls. I cooked up the sausage in the morning so that part of it was out of the way. The rest was a breeze.



I cooked a whole pound of orzo because we really like our soup with lots of pasta in it, you can cut back on that amount if you'd like it more brothy.

Italian Orzo Soup with Sausage and Spinach
recipe from Lisa@The Cutting Edge of Ordinary
PRINTABLE RECIPE
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. ground Italian sausage rolled into bite­ sized pieces
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 lb orzo pasta
6 - 7 cups reduced ­sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
4 cups lightly packed baby spinach (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste

Add some olive oil to a large pan and lightly brown the sausage. Don't worry if they are a little pink inside. When you add them to the hot soup it will cook the meat. Move to a paper towel lined plate or bowl and set aside. Add a bit more oil to the same pan and cook the onion, celery and carrots until just tender.

Meanwhile in a large dutch oven heat up the chicken broth. See my notes on how to make quick, delicious chicken "stock" below.  Season with salt and pepper, and 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning. At this point I add in about 4 cups of baby spinach leaves. This is optional, but highly suggested! Slowly bring to boil.

While that is cooking, I boiled some salted water and cooked the orzo until it is al dente. Once the soup comes to a boil, lower the heat, add in the sausage and the orzo, give it a good stir, heat for another 5 - 10 minutes then serve!

Note* You can certainly buy chicken stock but I like to make a quick chicken "stock" by boiling a small 3 - 4 pound chicken carcass. You can even do this with a rotisserie chicken. Just pick the meat off the bones and then throw all the bones and skin into a soup pot, bring to a boil and simmer an hour. Remove the chicken bones and you have a fast chicken stock! I save the chicken meat for another meal or freeze it for my next batch of chicken soup.