Tomato Soup With Sausage, Pasta and Herbed Ricotta
This tomato soup is a hearty, one-pot meal packed with bold Italian flavours. Sweet peppers, spinach, and tender shell pasta simmer in tomato broth before being finished with a creamy herbed ricotta topping.
Ingredients
Herbed Ricotta
- 1 cup ricotta cheese
- 1 tsp dried parsley (option to use fresh)
- 1 tsp dried basil (option to use fresh)
- 1 tsp lemon zest
Soup
- 340 g Italian sausage casings removed
- 1 large onion diced
- 1 sweet red pepper diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 can (411 g) whole tomatoes with juices
- 3 cups sodium-reduced chicken broth
- 1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- ½ tsp each salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 125 g medium shell pasta
- 1½ cups spinach chopped
Instructions
Herbed Ricotta
- In small bowl, stir together ricotta, parsley, basil and lemon zest. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Soup
- Heat large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add sausage and onion and cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, until no pink remains, 5 to 6 minutes. Drain any fat.
- Add pepper and garlic and cook until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add canned tomatoes with juices, breaking up tomatoes with your hands as you add them. Stir in broth, crushed tomatoes, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta shells according to package directions. Drain and divide among 6 bowls (see note #2).
- Add spinach to soup; remove from heat and let stand for 3 minutes. Ladle over pasta shells and top each bowl with 2 tbsp of the herbed ricotta.