Dollop
Sausage and gnocchi soup
Italian sausage, soft potato gnocchi and spinach in a creamy, garlicky broth, a cozy one-pot dinner in about 35 minutes.
- 35 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 5
- About $3.10 a serving
- 560 calories
- Good the next day
Dolly says: Make the full amount. It’s just as good for lunch the next day.
Ingredients
For 5 servings.
- 1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 cups chicken broth
- 1 lb potato gnocchi
- ¾ cup half-and-half
- 3 cups baby spinach
- ¼ cup grated parmesan
From your pantry
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
Each serving has about 560 calories, 21 g protein, 40 g carbs and 35 g fat, and costs about $3.10 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No chicken broth? Vegetable broth or bone broth works.
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
- No grated parmesan? Parmesan wedge works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the onion, the garlic, and squeeze the sausage out of its casings if it has them.
Dice. Dicing means cutting food into small, even cubes, usually a quarter to half an inch across. Pieces the same size cook at the same speed, so nothing burns while the rest catches up.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are little cubes about the size of a chickpea, and they all look close to the same.
Mince. Mincing means chopping something into the tiniest pieces you can, smaller than a grain of rice. Tiny pieces melt into the dish, so you get the flavor without biting into a chunk of garlic.
How you’ll know: Every piece is tiny and about the same size, and the pile starts to look almost like a paste.
Cook the sausage in a large pot over medium-high heat, breaking it into small , until with no pink left, 8 to 10 minutes.
Crumble. Crumbling means breaking food into small, rough bits with your fingers or a spoon, like feta or ground meat in the pan. Small bits spread through the dish, so there’s some in every bite.
How you’ll know: The pieces are small and uneven, about pea-size, with no big clumps left.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Medium-high heatTimer: 9 min
Food safety: Raw pork sausage is done at 160°F and raw chicken or turkey sausage at 165°F. Precooked sausage just needs heating until hot all the way through.
Add the onion and cook for 4 minutes, until soft, then stir in the garlic and Italian seasoning for 30 seconds.
Medium heatTimer: 4 min 30 sec
Pour in the broth, , and over high heat.
Scrape up the browned bits. It means loosening the brown bits stuck to the pan with a wooden spoon, usually right after adding liquid. Those bits are concentrated flavor, and they melt into the sauce.
How you’ll know: The bottom of the pan looks clean again, and the liquid turns darker and richer.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Add the gnocchi and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until they float.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Turn the heat to low and stir in the half-and-half and spinach until the spinach . Don’t let it .
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Boil. Boiling means heating a liquid until big bubbles rise and break all over the surface. It’s the fastest way to cook pasta, potatoes and eggs, because it’s as hot as water gets.
How you’ll know: Bubbles are breaking across the whole surface, not just at the edges, and steam is rising.
Low heatTimer: 2 min
Stir in the parmesan, taste for salt, and serve with of red pepper flakes.
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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