I bet you have finished a bowl of the Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup and wondered if you could make this soup. Yes, you can make this favorite soup from the Olive Garden. You will have a creamy soup filled with crispy bacon, chicken stock, and pork sausage. The first time you taste your homemade soup, it will become a family favorite.
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Copycat Zuppa Toscana
When you try this Olive Garden copycat recipe, you won’t need to go out for unlimited soup and breadsticks any longer. I make this hearty soup often, but I must confess, the Olive Garden is my favorite restaurant, so I still go back all the time!
Why This is the Best Recipe for Zuppa Toscana
This is the best copycat, Zuppa Toscana because it contains everything you love about this soup. Italian sausage, many Russet potatoes, and bits of smokey bacon are all served in a creamy broth. This Italian soup is packed with everything so that you can enjoy this delicious soup at home. Be sure to serve it with some crusty bread!
What is Zuppa Toscana?
Zuppa is an Italian word for soup. Toscana is the Italian name for the region of Tuscany. So Zuppa Toscana is Tuscan soup.
Olive Garden Tuscan soup is creamy, hearty, and loaded with Italian sausage, tender potatoes, and kale. It is an excellent meal with Olive Garden breadsticks and Italian salad. It is also Olive Garden’s most famous soup, and serves countless bowls of it every day.
What Makes Italian Sausage Italian?
Sausage is the star of this soup, so it needs to be the highest quality Italian sausage you can find. Make sure to select Italian sausages for this recipe because it has an entirely different flavor profile than other types of sausage, such as Andouille or Chorizo.
Italian sausages combine finely ground pork, pork fat, and seasonings inside a natural casing. The main seasonings which give them their unique flavor are fennel and anise.
Unlike other varieties of sausages, Italian sausages are always raw and never smoked or precooked. You will need to make sure to cook them thoroughly before serving.
Don’t be confused about the labeling on the package. You will often see Italian sausages labeled as ‘mild,’ ‘sweet’, or ‘hot’ in the supermarket.
Mild and sweet sausages are two different words companies use to describe the same ingredients.
The word ‘hot’ indicates that red pepper flakes are part of the pork mixture. The spiciness of hot Italian sausages varies by brand.
Hot or sweet Italian sausages work for this recipe, so choose whichever one you usually enjoy. You can also make Italian Sausage and season it to your liking.
Zuppa Toscana Soup Ingredients
Here’s a list of what you need to make this hearty homemade soup.
- Mild Italian sausage – You can use spicy Italian sausage
- Russet Potatoes is what the restaurant uses; Yukon Gold is another great option
- White onion – You can use yellow onion as well. I find it adds a bit more heat than what the restaurant serves.
- Chicken Broth – Homemade makes a more delicious broth, but canned will work, I recommend low-sodium
- Water
- Garlic cloves
- Slices of bacon or Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Bits
- Kosher salt
- Ground black pepper
- Fresh kale
- Heavy cream
Nutritional information can be found on the recipe card below.
How to Make Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana
- Place the sausages in a baking pan—brown sausage by roasting at 300°F for 30 minutes or until cooked through.
- Drain sausages on paper towels to absorb the excess grease and cut the links into slices.
- Place the potatoes, onions, chicken broth, water, and garlic in a large pot or large Dutch oven and cook on medium heat until the potatoes are fork-tender.
- Add the sausage, bacon, salt, and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Turn the heat to low. Add kale and cream and stir to combine.
- Add more water if necessary for desired consistency.
- Heat thoroughly and serve.
Cooking and Serving Suggestions for the Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Recipe
- Use a food chopper. The time required to make this recipe revolves around cutting the vegetables. Save time and get perfectly diced onions and sliced potatoes with an inexpensive and indispensable food chopper. These inexpensive food prep tools are a must-have time-saver in any kitchen.
- Serve with warm slices of Tuscan bread to make Zuppa Toscana a simple supper. Tuscan bread is unique because it is baked without salt. Some people say there is no salt in bread from the region because the stubborn residents refused to pay high salt taxes during the Middle Ages. Other people think saltless bread pairs well with the traditionally heavy and salty local food. Either way, Tuscan bread goes great with this soup.
- Top each bowl w
How to Store Leftover Copycat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana
Like many soups, this soup tastes better the next day! Store any leftover soup in an airtight plastic container in your refrigerator.
How long is Zuppa Toscana good for in the fridge?
Should you have any soup leftover you can store it in an air-tight container in your refrigerator. It should be consumed within three to five days. After this point, the soup should be frozen to be eaten later.
Does Zuppa Toscana freeze well?
Zuppa Toscana does freeze well. You should store this in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Best Way to Reheat Soup
You may be tempted to place this soup in the microwave, but soup is best reheated on the stovetop. Simply reheat the amount you will need over low to medium heat. This way all of the soup will reheat evenly.
Love Olive Garden? Try these copycat recipes!
Here are some of the most popular recipes for Olive Garden:
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- Olive Garden Spinach Dip
- Capellini Pomodoro
- Seafood Alfredo
- Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo
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Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana
Ingredients
- 1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage links
- 1 pound russet potatoes peeled, cut in half lengthwise, then sliced 1/4-inch thick
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 29 ounces chicken broth (2 cans)
- 1 quart water
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1/4 cup chopped slices of bacon or Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Bits(1/2 can)
- kosher salt to taste
- ground black pepper to taste
- 2 cups chopped kale
- 1 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
- Place the sausages in a baking pan and roast for about 30 minutes or until cooked through. Drain sausages on paper towels and cut into slices.
- If you are using fresh bacon slices, saute bacon in a small skillet until the bacon has browned.
- Place the potatoes, onions, chicken broth, water, and garlic in a pot and cook on medium heat until potatoes are done.
- Add the sausage, bacon, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Turn the heat to low. Add kale and cream. Stir to combine.
- Add more water, if necessary for desired consistency.
- Heat thoroughly and serve.
Heather Chapman
I omitted the bacon, changed the chicken broth to vegetable broth, and used Morningstar’s Italian Sausage to make this vegetarian style – and it still tasted just like the soup at olive garden! It was so good, thank you so much!
Raraqueen91
I use Goya pork flavoring packets instead of cream, leave out the bacon, and use red potatoes instead of russets and it tastes just as good with less calories.
Reglindis Eckhardt
I loved the soup in the restaurant and from this recipe. I really find the thumbnail pics a help too.
JessShivers
This is a great recipe, my husband asks me to make it all the time now! The only thing I do differently is instead of baking the sausage I remove the casing and brown it in a skillet, it gives it more of a ground beef texture, more like what I’ve seen at Olive Garden.
CherylK
This is one of my favorite soups! So thrilled to have found this recipe of yours…I’ll be making it the very next cool day that we have. (And in Minnesota, that could be tomorrow – ha!)
Cheryl Robinson
This soup is excellent; I still use bacon because that was the original recipe I found years ago on Copycat. I am always amazed that people say they want a specific recipe because they love it – BUT, look for ways to change it or substitute ingredients.
Stephanie Manley
I have found that recipes change from time to time at a restaurant. Sometimes food costs are the reason. Sometimes restaurants want to reduce the costs on their dishes and may remove or substitute ingredients over time.
Jenn
So, I am attempting to make this for the first time but with a few changes…half and half and turkey sausage to make it healthier and adding then making some without the kale for my husband…wish me luck, i’ll let u know how it turns out!
kristie
where can i find kale or swiss chard
Stephanie
You can find this in most grocery stores in the produce department.
Melissa R Wheeler
As I mentioned on your FB Page YOU have WON my Heart! This is my all time favorite dish! Thanks for what you are sharing with us!
Stephanie
I feel so honored!
Server
sausage, sliced potatoes and kale
cream, bacon, onions, garlic and crushed red pepper.
Straight from the OG product hand book 🙂
Cindy Boyd
My daughter and I ate at the Olive Garden in Chillicothe, Ohio recently on our “Girls Day” out. I had this soup and will say that it came with the ground sausage, not sliced. Seems like it must vary from location to location. I think the sliced would be nice for the men because the ground meat is more “feminine” . But WOW was it good! I’m going to make this recipe this week. Thank you!!!!
Dany
Thanks for sharing this recipe!
I’ve been thinking about doing something new for my kids this week, and I’m going to make this soup. I’m sure they’ll like it 🙂
Dan
I was wondering if it works with cauliflower, can it works will broccoli too?
Stephanie
I think broccoli, while it would work would taste very different than the way the soup really tastes at the restaurant.
Patricia Chamlee
I use ground hot Italian sauage sothe meat is distributed throughout the soup. Great recipe. I felt like an OG chef straight out of Tuscany!
Tina
I add a few crushed hot pepper flakes. Gives the soup a little kick
question
not a fan of onions but love this soup. i have never noticed onions in there? is onion salt an option?
Stephanie
If you really dislike onions that much, I would just omit them. You could use a little onion salt.
Stacy
I made this recipe and used turkey sausage (spicey) and a packet of dry ranch dressing mix instead of the heavy cream…..cuts down on fat and calories and still tastes the same.
Barbara Hopkins Hopkins
Yum! My daughter made this last night after a day of skiing and snowboarding. It is quick, hearty and delicious! Like another person suggested, she used the hot Italian sausage for the added kick and sauted it before adding it to the soup-nice chunks that the younger members of the family could avoid if they didn’t like spicy. Thanks so much!
kloewen
Excellent! Tastes just like, if not better than, the OG soup.
I also added red pepper flakes just because I do that just about every time I cook sausage or ground beef.
I wasn’t sure what 2 cans meant because broth comes in large and small cans so I just used the carton of broth and less water.
Beerenzyday
Why http://google.com better http://yahoo.com?
Stephanie
Do you have to use heavy cream or can you use 1/2 and 1/2 with some milk for heart healthy
Stephanie
You can try it, and let us know the results. My recipes are developed on what simulates the restaurant’s recipe the closest. The most I will personally recommend is using all half and half. Anything beyond that I personally won’t make any claims on.