Italian sausage orecchiette soup is cold-weather comfort in a bowl
I am, as of yet, unable to see into the future. However, I do know that the cooking column I wrote this week — the one you are reading right now — is now the cooking column I wrote last week.
And last week (which right now is this week, if I choose to persist in this Abbott & Costello-esque nonsense), it was cold.
The cold is something about which I am semi-conflicted.
I grew up amid cold and snowy winters. Not the midwestern kind — those are a whole other level of gray misery I cannot even begin to contemplate — but the basic kind. I played in the snow in my moon boots and Freezy Freakies. I built forts and sledded and greatly loved all these things. Most of us do.
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Then, you hit the age when your parents start making you shovel the driveway (shoveling neighbors’ driveways for money is far better), and then you get even older and get a job and, worse, a car, and then you have to add the brutal act of putting on boots and a coat over your pajamas and in the frozen black hell of the morning, go outside and dig out the car and brush and scrape the windows. If you lived in the city (where the snow is truly gorgeous … for about five minutes until it turns ashy and clings to the underside of your vehicle in filthy, jagged blocks), there was always the chance that a plow would have come by overnight and wall you in so deep that you might consider just getting an autopay account for the tickets you will accrue due to being unable to comply with alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules.
It has been 24 years since I have lived anywhere it snows, yet these bitter words come as a pyroclastic flow with barely any room for punctuation.
On the other hand: slinky sweaters and cute boots, scarves and hats and all my favorite jackets! Christmas lights and cocoa and mulled wine and soup!
And so, last week (which right now is this week), a bunch of locals, joyful to have dug out their sweaters and opened their windows for the first time since February, started talking about soup on the Orlando Sentinel’s Let’s Eat Orlando Facebook page.
“My favorite food is SOUP!!” wrote one enthusiastic fan. “On my death bed, I want a cold bowl of fresh vichyssoise that is made with real heavy cream and fresh chives and a glass of oaky Chardonnay.”
What followed? A thread of beautifully brothy banter that took us from Vietnamese bún bò huế to Chinese hot and sour, Chilean porotos con riendas to vegan butternut squash.
This column was already in the works, but I want to thank them all for the lead inspiration and the possibility of a soup series in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, let’s kick it off with this Italian sausage orecchiette soup, a ridiculously easy recipe that seduced me in seconds via an Instagram reel from Charlotte Fashion Plate, an account helmed by content and recipe creator Melissa Latin.
I beheld its rich orange-red color, the steam rising from ladle and bowl, the pops of green from the spinach and just about swooned (and it wasn’t even cold outside yet). Add to that the lovely, toothy-looking discs of orecchiette (it means “little ear” in Italian) and a hefty sprinkle of Parmigiano, and I favorited the thing with plans to make it the next day.
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But I made a few tweaks.
One, it turns out, was one of her own suggestions, which was to use hot Italian sausage, the spice of which permeated that wonderful broth. While Latin’s recipe uses only ground sausage (you can simply squeeze it from the casing if you can’t find it that way), I thought it could bear some meaty hunks, so I chose to brown up some extra links, then sliced them up to finish cooking in the soup.
The final change-up wasn’t voluntary but fortuitous nonetheless.
The store didn’t have orecchiette. I didn’t have time to go gallivanting around for pasta specificity. (Generally speaking, who does?!) And so radiatore it was. These wavy little lumps of yum always remind me more of tiny brains than radiators, but whatever. They’re amazing in soups. And while sometimes I eschew the idea of cooking the pasta in the actual broth, in this case, the wonderful starchiness that seeps from it gives this one lovely, silky body.
Sometimes, you have to improvise in the kitchen. (For many of us, that’s most of the time, as we’re busy doing a zillion other things besides meal planning.) This was a good one.
“It kind of reminds me of Chef Boyardee Roller Coasters,” I said to my beau, staring down into my bowl.
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He laughed. He’d been thinking the same thing. The nostalgia was fun, especially having learned those were discontinued back in the ’90s, but this soup offers up far more on the palate and in the tummy. Come the next cold snap, it’ll prove a veritable furnace.
It comes together in about 20 minutes (a little longer if you go the extra sausage route as I did), tastes even better the next day and can be made lighter by using turkey or even vegetarian options.
One of the neatest things about living in Central Florida is that we can enjoy all of these cooler-weather delights — sweaters! scarves! soup! — without that far less appealing S-word: snow. No shoveling. No ice scraping. No North Face gear requirement for dog walks. Well, maybe when it’s 48 or below. My blood has thinned in the 20+ years I’ve lived here. But I have no regrets.
I like hot soup in July, too.
Italian Sausage & Orecchiette Soup
(Recipe courtesy Charlotte Fashion Plate; charlottefashionplate.com/recipes/italian-sausage-orecchiette-soup)
Ingredients
1 pound hot Italian sausage links, casings removed
1/4 white or yellow onion, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups passata (If passata is unavailable, blend canned whole tomatoes* until smooth. Alternatively, use tomato sauce for a slightly different flavor profile.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups orecchiette pasta
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
Instructions
Heat a deep pot over medium heat.
Remove sausage from casing and add to pot, breaking apart as it browns.
Once the sausage is almost fully cooked, add minced onions and garlic. Cook an additional minute.
Pour in passata, season with salt and pepper, then add chicken stock. Increase the heat to nearly a boil.
Add pasta, stirring well. Reduce the heat to simmer. Loosely cover pot and allow the pasta to cook to just al dente, about 8 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent sticking.
When pasta is almost al dente, add the spinach and Parmesan. Stir well and cook another minute to let spinach wilt.
Ladle the soup into bowls, garnishing with additional Parmesan cheese.
*I went this route.
Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com, For more foodie fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group.
