Thursday, February 20, 2020

Sausage Lentil Soup - Carrabba's copycat

We ate at Carrabba's for the first time this winter and I had some Sausage and Lentil Soup as a first course.   Honestly, soup isn't something I normally order at a restaurant for some reason, but maybe it came with a meal.  I don't know.  All I remember for sure is there were two soup choices, the waiter recommend their Sausage and Lentil Soup, I said okay.  

It was more than okay.  It was delicious!  At home, I went looking for a similar recipe and found numerous ones online.  They don't vary much from each other, so I chose one that looked the most straight forward.  The recipe I used (and adapted) can be found here: Sausage Lentil Soup by Boos Mom.  

I've typed out the recipe below because there are some measurements that didn't make it into the original recipe.  I also made some minor changes.  If you try it, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!




Sausage and Lentil Soup (like Carrabba's)

1 lb ground Italian Sausage
1 large onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
7 cups chicken broth
2 (14 1/2 oz) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2-3 garlic cloves (minced)
1 tsp salt
2 cups dry lentils 
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp thyme
1-2 bay leaves

Note: I used dried spices

Saute vegetables in small amount of olive oil 'till they begin to soften.  Set aside.

Brown Italian sausage and drain.  

In a large pot combine sausage and sauteed vegetables.  Add remaining ingredients.

Bring to a simmer.  Stirring off and on, simmer in open pot for 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Remove bay leaves before serving.


Hubs sprinkled some shredded cheese in his, but I liked this with nothing more added to mine. 

This soup freezes great.  In fact, today we finished off what I froze when I first made this in January.  It was just as delicious as when first served.  I'm not an eater of super spicy foods, but this has a perfect amount of kick for us.  If you'd prefer it less spicy, I imagine using less red pepper flakes would help to manage that.




We enjoyed ours today with some grilled cheese sandwiches made with sliced Everything French Bread.  Mmmmm.



18 comments:

  1. Thank you for the recipe! It sounds delicious and I am always up for a good soup and with grilled cheese? Yum!

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    1. Making grilled cheese with everything french bread (and a bit stale bread at that) makes for the most delicious sandwich. That's my food tip for the week. :)

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  2. Oh that looks so nice! Such a pretty plate and soup bowl/mug!!! It's really great when you can recreate a meal that you loved!!!!!

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    1. Given how pretty and thoughtful your meal tables are, Elizabeth, I appreciate the compliment over a simple one. I love my off white dishes. They're not expensive and pieces have come from all sorts of places, but it always works well for a picture. I am wishing I had gotten a closer up of the soup, though. ;^)

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  3. This looks like a keeper. Thank you. Definitely trying this.

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  4. Oh yum. My "to make" recipes are growing quickly. Between you and Sam my mouth is on full time watering.

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    1. It seems winter brings out the food and recipe posts. :) I'm enjoying yours, too!

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  5. This sounds a lot like a lentil soup I have made for years, only my recipe does not use sausage or red pepper flakes. It came from Jane Brody's Good Food Book. And I must say that it is delicious that way, if you were interested in a meatless soup.

    I'll be trying this, though, because it sounds scrumptious!

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    1. The only other Lentil Soup I've made is Lentils Monastery Style from Diet for a Small Planet. I haven't made that in so long. I need to get this spicy one out of my memory a bit to make that one, though because my memory of the flavor of that one is mild and savory, and very rich with the addition of swiss cheese. So many good soups!

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  6. If Resident Chef tries this soup, we hadn't better mention it to our boys. Way back when I once undertook to cook lentils (think it was a soup actually) and served it to my unsuspecting family. It was worse than awful and I have never lived it down. To this day none of us have eaten them. Hmmm.....I wonder.....

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    1. It's hard to get over a bad experience with food. Or flavors. As a teen I was treated with raspberry flavored fluoride. I couldn't bring myself to eat anything raspberry or raspberry flavored until I was in my 40's. For some reason I decided to taste some raspberry pie. I exclaimed, "THIS is what raspberries taste like?!?" I'm not even a fan of fruit pies, but I was so overwhelmed and surprised at how NOT like the awful fluoride it was.

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    2. Raspberry flavoured fluoride - I can't imagine it. Yuck.

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    3. The things is... if I just hadn't been told the fluoride was raspberry flavored, I wouldn't have created the association and avoided raspberries. I've often wished I'd been told it was chocolate flavored. THAT might have saved me a WORLD of trouble!

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  7. Oooh that sounds delicious, but I have to say....I want to devour that grilled cheese!!

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    1. I know... That grilled cheese sandwich was really yummy. :)

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  8. Sounds delicious. I printed out the recipe! Thanks.

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    1. If you make it, I hope you like this lentil soup as much as we do!

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