This sausage and gnocchi soup serves many purposes that apply right now—it’s easy, calls for pantry staples, and who doesn’t love Italian?—but it’s so good it’s sure to become a favorite you’ll be making for years to come.
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Pantry staple recipes are having a renaissance and we’re stocking our pantries with all the right stuff to prove It. Soups with simple pantry ingredients like 5-ingredient Thai Pumpkin Soup and Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup and pastas like Gnocchi with Pomodoro Sauce are saving weeknight eats while keeping us all eating healthy.
Canned tomatoes, chicken stock, and shelf-stable packaged gnocchi are cooked with fresh or frozen spinach, onions, and sausage to make this quick cooking soup recipe easy to slurp with abandon.
Make this soup now for it’s pantry-friendly ingredients (see my list of ingredient substitutions below) then keep it forever for it’s comforting, familiar flavors and easy-to-make method.
What Is Gnocchi?
While it’s hard to choose your favorite child, gnocchi just might be my favorite pasta. If you’ve never eaten gnocchi before, IMO you’re really missing out.
Essentially, gnocchi is a small dumpling that’s made with some combination of mashed potatoes, flour, and sometimes eggs or cheese. When made right, they’re ultra soft and slightly chewy. It can be made from scratch or purchased in vacuum sealed packages that can be kept in the pantry.
Gnocchi can be dressed up so many different ways and are a cinch to cook. You know they’re finished cooking when the dumplings float on top of the boiling water or in this case, soup broth.
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What’s In This Gnocchi Soup
This soup’s inspiration is steeped in the traditional Italian flavors of simple ingredients to make a homey soup that delivers all the comfort we’re craving now.
- Ground sausage—I used regular pork sausage with dried herbs below added for flavor
- Dried fennel seeds
- Red pepper flakes
- Onion
- Garlic
- Canned, diced tomatoes with their juice—regular or with basil added
- Chicken stock
- Italian seasoning
- Gnocchi—sold in shelf stable packaging
- Spinach
- Grated Parmesan cheese
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How to Prepare the Sausage
I used plain, ground sausage in this recipe, but both pork or turkey sausage would work well too. If you have it, Italian flavor sausage adds just another Italian notch in your soup making belt.
Adding the seasonings to the sausage is super easy—it’s done right in the pot. Add the sausage to the hot oil and break it up with a wooden spoon so all of the small sausagey chunks get time with the heat.
To release the flavorful oils from the seeds, rub and crush the dried fennel seeds between your fingers. Add the fennel to the sausage with the red pepper flakes, continuing to break up the sausage and combining the flavors. A nice caramelization does wonders for any meat and browning adds flavor to the soup. However, you don’t want it too crispy since it will continue to cook with the onion and garlic as noted below.
How to Make This Gnocchi Soup
Once the sausage is browned, add the onion and garlic to the pot together and cook until softened and fragrant, stirring often so the garlic doesn’t burn and become bitter.
Add the chicken stock, tomatoes, and water with the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce to a rolling simmer to cook for 5 minutes for the tomatoes to lose their raw flavor and the seasonings and flavors to meld.
Add the gnocchi to the broth and stir. The gnocchi will rise to the top of the broth when done cooking. They should taste soft and a little bit chewy.
Because the spinach wilts quickly, add it to the soup off the heat so it stays bright green and somewhat leafy. Simply stir in to the warm broth where it will soften into the soup.
Fresh/Frozen/Pantry Ingredient Substitutions
This soup can flex and bend with ingredients you have on hand or like the most, such as:
- Instead of regular pork sausage, use Italian pork sausage or turkey sausage. Plain 90% lean ground turkey won’t be as flavorful but is a fine substitution too.
- Fennel seeds impart a uniquely Italian licorice flavor. If you don’t have fennel seeds, use crushed anise seeds or crushed caraway seeds.
- Plain, canned diced tomatoes can be substituted with whole tomatoes that have been crushed with your fingers with their juice, or canned Italian-flavored diced tomatoes with garlic and basil. Avoid using tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes which would make this soup more of a sauce.
- Frozen chopped onions will work instead of fresh yellow or white onions.
- If fresh spinach isn’t on hand, substitute frozen spinach that’s been thawed with all of the water squeezed from it. Or, try another leafy green instead like chopped kale, thinly sliced cabbage, or swiss chard.
Make This Soup Vegetarian
To make this gnocchi soup vegetarian, use a plant-based meat alternative instead of sausage. Or, sauté the onion and garlic with a 15 ounce can canned beans (drain and rinse first) like chickpeas or cannellini beans instead. Use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth to make it veg-friendly.
Can You Freeze This Soup?
This soup is great to freeze for later. Ladle cooled soup into a freezer safe container or zip lock gallon freezer bags and place flat in the freezer so they’re easily stackable. Label with the contents and date before filling the bags. The soup can be frozen for up to 3 months.
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