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The best thing about cold weather? It’s the best excuse to make a big pot of soup or stew! This recipe is an Italian take on our standby cabbage soup.
More a stew than a soup, it uses Savoy cabbage (you could also use Napa cabbage), which is milder than regular cabbage, Italian sausage, white beans, fresh parsley, and Parmesan cheese.
I’m so used to German treatments of cabbage, I’m surprised at how good this stew is with the Italian sausage and Parmesan. I don’t usually think of Parmesan and cabbage paired together, but they really do work in this stew.
Easy to make and easy on the budget. Buon appetito!
Italian Sausage and Cabbage Stew Recipe
We use savoy cabbage for this recipe, but you could use regular cabbage, or even collard greens or dinosaur kale. If you want to make this stew vegetarian, leave out the sausage and double the beans.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage, bulk, or removed from casings
- 1 large yellow onion, half sliced and half minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 cups white wine
- 1 15-ounce can of white beans (cannellini, Great Northern, or Navy), drained
- 1 quart vegetable or chicken stock
- 1 quart water
- 1 teaspoon salt, more to taste
- 1 large (2-pound) savoy cabbage, quartered, then sliced into 1/4-inch thick slices
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup chopped parsley, loosely packed
- 1/2 cup to a cup of freshly grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese for garnish
Method
1 Cook the sausage: Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a large (8-quart), thick-bottomed pot. Add the sausage, breaking it up into pieces as you put it into the pot in a single layer.
When the sausage has cooked on all sides, remove it with a slotted spoon and set aside.
2 Sauté onions, garlic: Add the minced onion (save the sliced onion for later) and sauté for 3-4 minutes, stirring often.
Once the onions give up some of their water, use a wooden spoon to scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
Add the minced garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes.
3 Add wine, beans, boil, lower heat to simmer: Add the white wine and the beans and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. If you want, for a thicker base, use an immersion blender to blend some (or all) of the beans and onions.
4 Add water, stock, salt, cabbage, sliced onion, bay leaves, sausage, then simmer: Add the water, stock, salt, cabbage, sliced onion half, bay leaves and browned sausage. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, then uncover and continue cooking until the cabbage is tender, about another 10-20 minutes.
To serve, sprinkle on chopped parsley and grated cheese.
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Links:
EASY and delicious Cabbage Soup here on Simply Recipes
Kale Sausage Soup with Tomatoes and Chickpeas here on Simply Recipes
Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup from Skinny Taste
Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Italian Sausage and Cabbage Stew
Made this tonight and it’s a definite keeper! So comforting and flavorful! My family loved it, including our seven-year old. I only had green cabbage on hand and it worked out perfectly. I sliced in a little thinner than 1/4″. We have enough left over for another dinner and a lunch, too! Thanks for the great recipe!
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Yummy! I like some heat so I used spicy Italian sausage rather than sweet, 2 bags of pre-sliced green cabbage from trader joes, half chicken and half veggie broth (no water), added a parmesan rind while the soup cooked, and seasoned it liberally with salt, pepper and hot pepper flakes. So satisfying and makes a lot of leftovers! I’ll make this one again and again. Thank you for a simple, delicious and budget friendly dish!
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Sounds good–how do you wash Napa cabbage? I usually wash the leaves as I rip them off and use them, but if you’re quartering and then slicing, it sounds like you don’t wash the inner bits? Thanks!
Hi Jeanine, if you are quartering the Napa cabbage, you can run the cabbage quarters, cut side, under running water to wash them.
Gramma made this but no beans, and a little orange rind. And cut the sausage into 2-3” lengths. Dunked hard, stale Italian bread. Yummy!
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I wasn’t sure my husband would like this but made it anyway! He LOVED it!! All through dinner he was making a list of things we could add to it, or smoked meat he would like to have the next time. Only change I made was adding potatoes, cooking them until al dente. Thank you for the recipe, perfect for a cold, rain/snow mix day!
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I’m so glad you and your husband liked it Ann! It’s such a warming soup, perfect for cold weather.