This Great Northern Bean Soup Recipe with Sausage & Spinach is the perfect remedy for those cold days when you just want to curl up on the couch and eat some comfort food!
You can either make this on the stove top in a big Dutch oven, or cook it in your slow cooker.
However, the slow cooker is great for preparing it all ahead of time and just throwing everything inside and going about your day.
As a result, the whole family will love coming home, especially during the cooler weather months, to the wonderful aroma of this soup!
Great Northern Bean Soup
This Great Northern Bean Soup Recipe is also called Tuscan Soup, which is an Italian white bean and spinach soup recipe.
However, some versions include pasta.
In addition, other versions omit the sausage.
For me, including the sausage adds more protein and omitting the pasta greatly reduces the carbs.
Great Northern Bean Soup Ingredients
Needless to say, most of the simple ingredients are staples you probably already have in your pantry and refrigerator like:
- Olive Oil
- Chicken Broth, Chicken Stock, or Vegetable Broth
- Carrots
- Celery Stalks
- Medium Onion
- Minced Garlic or Garlic Powder
- Oregano
- Salt or Kosher Salt
- Black Pepper
The other ingredients, you may need to go out to the grocery store and get are:
- Great Northern Beans – it’s perfectly fine if they’re canned beans
- Fresh Baby Spinach
- Andouille Sausage
Although, I really like to keep these ingredients on hand as much as possible too because they go with so many recipes.
For example, I love using fresh baby spinach in my eggs in the morning, like this Scrambled Eggs in a Mug recipe! Mmm!
Is Great Northern Bean Soup Good For You?
You bet it’s good for you!
White beans, specifically Great Northern Beans, are an awesome source of fiber, protein, folate, manganese, & iron!
In addition, they just taste really good and they add good sustenance to this easy meal.
How Do You Make Great Northern Bean Soup From Scratch?
Well, we’re gonna tell ya!
It just requires a little bit of chopping and cooking and then the rest is just a matter of heat and time.
Step 1: Slice & Cook Andouille Sausage
First, slice up your andouille sausage into thin slices.
Then, add olive oil to a large skillet (if transferring to the slow cooker) or a large pot or large Dutch oven (if cooking it on the stove) over medium heat to high heat and add the sliced sausage.
Cook the sausage, while stirring frequently, until it is a nice light brown color.
Step 2: Dice Onion, Carrots and Celery & Combine Other Ingredients Into Slow Cooker
Obviously, this part is pretty self explanatory.
Just cut the celery, carrots, and onion pretty small and add them to your slow cooker or crock-pot along with the cooked sausage.
Then, add the minced garlic, great northern beans, oregano, chicken broth, 2 cups of water and salt & pepper.
By the way, be careful with the amount of black pepper you add to this soup!
I’m typically a ‘the-more-pepper-the-better’ kinda girl.
However, in this recipe, I added a little bit too much pepper and it was a tad bit on the spicy side, which for me, changes it from comfort food to ‘lets-see-how-long-I-can-eat-this-before-it-gets-to-be-too-spicy’.
Step 3: Add Fresh Spinach
After everything has been added to the slow cooker (except for the baby spinach – you’ll add that right before you serve it), turn on the slow cooker and let it do it’s thang!
The cooking time for this soup in the slow cooker is 7 to 8 hours on low heat or 3 to 4 hours on high heat.
Then, when it’s ready to eat, mix in the baby spinach and let it wilt in with the soup.
Now, it’s ready to eat!
Look how good it looks! Yum!
Oh my goodness!
Not only did I feel really good about eating this healthy, protein rich soup, but also it was the perfect comfort meal on a chilly weekend afternoon!
Accompany a nice size bowl of this soup with a toasted, crusty, buttered slice of bread, and you’ve got yourself the perfect ‘lets-turn-the-fireplace-on-and-watch-a-good-movie evening’!
Pro Tips
Here are some tips I have after making this Great Northern Bean Soup recipe:
- Add fresh spinach immediately before serving the soup because it can tend to get almost overly wilted the longer it sits.
- Keep some extra raw spinach on hand to add to your soup when you’re eating leftovers, so you’ll still get that ‘freshly added spinach’ experience.
- Be very careful with the amount of pepper you add. For some reason, this recipe can get too spicy very easily.
Ingredient Substitutions and Additions
This is such a versatile bean soup recipe that you can swap so many different ingredients and cater it to your specific taste.
- In place of Great Northern Beans, you can use other different varieties of white beans such as Navy Beans or Cannellini Beans.
- Add a bay leaf to your soup to give it more flavor. Personally, I don’t like the flavor of a bay leaf, but a lot of people do like it.
- This recipe is a great way to use up leftover ham. So go ahead and swap out the andouille sausage for ham.
How Can I Freeze Bean Soup?
So if you’re going to take the time out to make this wonderful, hearty soup, you might as well make a LOT of it, right?
I mean, why not make extra so you can freeze it and enjoy it again in the future?
So how do you freeze any leftover soup?
It’s super easy!
- Allow the soup to cool to room temperature.
- Use a ladle to add the soup into Ziplock plastic gallon freezer bags.
- Make sure the Ziplock bag is completely closed.
- Carefully flatten the soup in the bag to gently press out as much air as possible.
- Then place the bag (s) in your freezer.
- Use a sharpie to label the bag with the name of the soup and the date you froze it.
- You can freeze soup for 2 to 3 months.
- If you prefer to refrigerate your soup instead of freezing it, place it into an airtight container and refrigerate for 4 to 5 days.
Great Northern Bean Soup Recipe
Great Northern Bean Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 package Smoked Andouille Sausage, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves Minced Garlic
- 1 Onion, diced
- 3 Carrots, peeled & diced
- 2 stalks Celery, diced
- 2 cans Great Northern Beans, drained & rinsed
- ½ tsp Oregano, dried
- 4 cups Chicken Broth
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- 2 cups Water
- 3 cups Baby Spinach, fresh
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add sliced sausage and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned.
- Once sausage is cooked, add it to the slow cooker, along with the diced celery, onion, & carrots, minced garlic, beans, oregano, chicken broth, 2 cups of water and salt & pepper (Be careful not to add too much pepper. It can overwhelm the soup).
- Mix until thoroughly combined. Cover the slow cooker and cook on low heat for 7 to 8 hours OR high heat for 3 to 4 hours.
- Just before the soup is ready to serve, add fresh baby spinach and mix into the soup until wilted.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- Be very careful with the amount of pepper you add. For some reason, this recipe can get too spicy very easily.
- Add fresh spinach immediately before serving the soup because it can tend to get almost overly wilted the longer it sits.
- Keep some extra raw spinach on hand to add to your soup when you’re eating leftovers, so you’ll still get that ‘freshly added spinach’ experience.
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