Healthy Zuppa Toscana Soup
My family loves the Zuppa Tuscano soup from Olive Garden, it's the main reason we go there for lunch. I started making my own version at home, but after I began clean eating, I couldn't bring myself to add the bacon, cream and pork sausage to the soup anymore...so a healthier version of the recipe was born.
I switched out the bacon with leaner canadian bacon, the cream with evaporated skim milk and the pork sausage with either turkey or chicken sausage. I try to only use fresh sausage from Fresh Market or Whole Foods, using the least processed and organic when possible. Choosing to use waxier type red potatoes, and boiling them in the soup, keeps the carbs in the soup at a lower Glycemic level then using russet potatoes, which will help keep your blood sugar from spiking.
The result is that while the calories from the two soups are very similar, the nutrition is not! The cleaner version has more than 4 times the protein than the Olive Garden version, 29 grams as opposed to 7 grams. The other good news is that instead of 15 grams of fat (6 sat fat), the healthier version has trimmed that down to only 4.5 grams of fat with 1 g saturated.
Feeding your family nutritious food is gift! Teaching them to appreciate healthier versions of the food they love, will help them develop better eating habits that they will carry with them throughout their life.
Healthy Zuppa Tuscano Soup
Ingredients:
1 lbs of Turkey or Chicken Italian Sausage
4 oz Canadian Bacon- chopped
2 Garlic Clove
1/2 Onion
48 oz Chicken Broth
1lbs Red Potatoes peeled and thinly sliced
12 oz Evaporated Skim Milk
2 cups Kale - chopped
Spray Dutch oven or large pot with cooking spray or olive oil and brown Italian sausage. Toss in Canadian bacon to heat through, remove from pot. Add garlic and onion and cook until tender. Pour in broth and bring to boil. Add potatoes and continue boiling until potatoes are tender and broth is slightly reduced. Reduce heat and add sausage mixture and evaporated skim milk to soup. Season with salt and pepper to taste - add kale before serving.
Servings 6, Calories 254, Fat 4.5g (sat fat 1.g), Total Carbs 24, Dietary Fiber 2g, Sugars 8g, Protein 29g Cholesterol 70mg, Potassium 1103mg