# Brad's Italian Soup > Brad's hearty Italian soup with homemade chicken broth, Italian sausage, white beans, roasted tomatoes, spinach, and ditalini pasta. **INGREDIENT LIST** **FOR THE BROTH** One Chicken One small smoked pork shank One red onion One yellow onion Assorted mushrooms Two carrots Four stalks of celery Two tablespoons of Peppercorns Head of garlic Fresh Thyme Fresh Oregano Fresh Sage Fresh Rosemary (not much) Fresh Dill One cup of brown or wild rice Two potatoes Chicken broth (64oz) - homemade is best Water (16oz) **FOR THE SOUP** One pound of Italian Sausage One pound of white beans Five tomatoes One tablespoon of tomatoes paste One pound of chicken breast One yellow onion Six cloves garlic One bay leaf Spinach Two large carrots **FOR SERVING** Ditalini pasta Fresh parsley **COOKING INSTRUCTIONS** **BROTH - CHICKEN** 1- Put the whole chicken in a pressure cooker and cover with water (do not overfill) 2 - Pressure cook high pressure for 2 hours 3 - Using an immersion blender, blend the chicken (bones and all) into a slurry 4 - Cover and keep warm and continue to the next section **BROTH - BASE** 1 - Cut celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and garlic into large chunks. Leave the skin on. 2 - Brown pork shank, celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and mushrooms in a stockpot (don't burn!) 3 - Once brown and fragrant, add garlic, Fresh Thyme, Oregano, Sage, Rosemary, Dill, and peppercorns 4 - Add broth, water, and rice 5 - Slowly bring to a simmer **BROTH - COMBINED** 1 - Once the base broth is simmering for about an hour, strain the contents (use cheesecloth!) of the pressure cooker into the base broth 2 - Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer 3 - Let the combined broth simmer and start on next step (preparing the soup) **BEANS** 1 - Rinse the beans 2 - Place the beans in the (cleaned) pressure cooker and cook at high pressure for ~30 minutes * If using pre-soaked beans, reduce cooking time (google it) **TOMATOES** 1 - Roast the tomatoes over hot coals or directly on a gas burner until the skin turns dark and bisters 2 - Remove from heat, put in a bowl, and cover allowing them to steam for 20 minutes or so 3 - After they're steamed, peel them and remove seeds and cut them into chunks. Set aside for the soup **CHICKEN** 1 - Salt and pepper the chicken well, place on a plate and keep it in the refrigerator until ready to use **SOUP** 1 - In a large dutch oven, brown the Italian sausage over medium-high heat 2 - Once brown, reduce heat, add a cup of water, cover, and allow the sausage to fully cook (don't burn!) 2 - Once the sausage is cooked, remove it from the dutch oven and set it aside - let the water reduce to very little 3 - In the same dutch oven (don't clean it), brown the chicken. Once brown (not fully cooked), set aside 4 - Dice garlic, carrots, and onions 5 - Slice the chicken and sausage into small bite-sized chunks 6 - Again in the same uncleaned dutch oven, saute the onions, garlic until aromatic (about 5 minutes) 7 - Add cut up sausage and chicken and stir 8 - Add the roasted tomatoes and tomato paste, stir some more 9 - Strain combined broth (use cheesecloth!) into the same dutch oven 10 - Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked 11 - Add spinach and reduce heat (up to you how much you want to use) 12 - Salt to taste **SERVING** 1 - Cook and strain Ditalini pasta 2 - Place ~quarter cup of pasta in a bowl 3 - Spoon the soup over the pasta 4 - Garnish with parsley leaves ## Details - **Category:** Cooking - **Tags:** cooking, soup, italian, sausage, white-beans, spinach, ditalini, pressure-cooker, dutch-oven **Also read:** [All writing](https://bradanderson.org/writing?format=md) · [About Brad](https://bradanderson.org/about?format=md) --- **Navigate:** [Home](https://bradanderson.org/?format=md) · [About](https://bradanderson.org/about?format=md) · [Work](https://bradanderson.org/work?format=md) · [Projects](https://bradanderson.org/projects?format=md) · [Breeds](https://bradanderson.org/breeds?format=md) · [Writing](https://bradanderson.org/writing?format=md) · [LLM guide](https://bradanderson.org/llms.txt) _Ask BradBot directly: POST https://bradanderson.org/api/agent/ask with {"question": "..."} (details in https://bradanderson.org/llms.txt)._