Italian-Style Winter Soup

If you like a thick hearty soup, you will like this recipe. Once the rice was almost cooked, I added another 2 cups of chicken stock and it was still very thick. If you want any broth at all in the soup, I recommend using a cup or less of rice. It also needed more flavor so I topped each bowl with fresh basil, cracked pepper and a little Parmesan cheese, which helped.

A little salty! Less chicken broth next time. I skipped step 2 and it was still great. I used some Trader Joe’s chicken sausages. I subbed heavy cream for 1/2cup oat milk and 1tbspn corn starch for my lactose intolerant husband.

THIS IS AN AMAZING SOUP!! Used Jimmy Deans Hot pork sausage, chopped closer to 1/2c onions, an 8oz Pkg sliced mini Bella mushrooms and added 3 skinnier carrots (sliced). While I heeded the advice of many others to use only 1c rice (good call!), I almost made the error of using Minute Rice vs Uncle Bens Long Grain white rice. Caught myself moments before pouring in. Minute Rice likely would have sped up the cook time but the slow simmer I think enhanced this recipe. Now, I normally try my best to adhere to the recipe as written and grade accordingly but I truly I think I would have liked without the added carrots and mushrooms. The flavor is top notch! Yes, I think the 2c rice might have been thick, but, I actually like thick soups?! No matter what, I already plan to make this again next week! So super easy and so darn good! Thanks Darin!!! Wish I would have found this recipe sooner! 👏

Definitely will be making this again. I added mushrooms, carrots, celery, and kale. I also seasoned it with garlic salt, peppercorn, celery salt, a little thyme, oregano, and basil. I also added 2 cups of water to the broth, wish I had only used 1 cup of rice as it sorta became a rice dish, but it was oh so good!

As is, this is just sausage and rice and needs quite a bit of help - like a lot less rice and a lot more of something else. I knew going in this was going to have too much rice so I prepared HALF the amount called for in advance, in chicken broth, and held it aside until I was ready to just add it to the soup at the end. I added mushrooms, carrots and celery to the sausage to give this some color and substance and they were great contributions. I added the rice at the end, then stirred in the cream and... I was still disappointed. It could have been creamier for one thing. And all those herbs just floated to the top and looked very unattractive; so unattractive that I skimmed most of it off and the soup was much improved, particularly in its appearance. We both liked the final result but it traveled a long way in the process to get to that point.

As is, this is just sausage and rice and needs quite a bit of help - like a lot less rice and a lot more of something else. I knew going in this was going to have too much rice so I prepared HALF the amount called for in advance, in chicken broth, and held it aside until I was ready to just add it to the soup at the end. I added mushrooms, carrots and celery to the sausage to give this some color and substance and they were great contributions. I added the rice at the end, then stirred in the cream and... I was still disappointed. It could have been creamier for one thing. And all those herbs just floated to the top and looked very unattractive; so unattractive that I skimmed most of it off and the soup was much improved, particularly in its appearance. We both liked the final result but it traveled a long way in the process to get to that point.