Zuppa Toscana (Olive Garden Copycat)

Published October 23, 2018. Last updated May 28, 2024 By Elizabeth Lindemann / This post may contain affiliate links.

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5 from 34 votes

Making the Olive Garden’s famous Zuppa Toscana at home is so easy, and you only need SIX ingredients! This creamy sausage and kale soup with potatoes is gluten-free, it takes only about a half an hour to make, and it’s kid-friendly.

The Olive Garden's famous Zuppa Toscana is so easy to make from scratch at home with only a few ingredients! A creamy, gluten-free soup with Italian sausage, potatoes, and kale.

I made mine with kale, since I have more kale than I know what to do with growing in my garden. But spinach (baby or adult), or other random greens, such as beet greens, will work.

It’s a great way to use up any greens you have lingering around your fridge about to go bad.

You can use any kind of Italian sausage you want. I prefer spicy, so I usually make this with hot Italian sausage. Sweet or mild work very well too.

Having traveled in Italy more than once and being somewhat of a self-proclaimed food snob, I like to think I know what authentic Italian food should taste like. This being said, I have something that I need to say about the Olive Garden.

I LOVE IT, OK?! Stop judging me, all of you!

OK so it’s not the most “authentic” Italian in the world, but it is certainly a comforting place to eat.

As soon as we learned how to drive my high school friends and I would go there for “fancy” dinners on the weekends.

Zach and I may or may not have gone there on the first day of our honeymoon on our drive up to Quebec City.

Unlimited soup, salad and breadsticks for $5? Yes, please.

But does Olive Garden use the freshest, healthiest, wholesome ingredients? Methinks not.

And so, I present to you a copycat recipe for Zuppa Toscana, a very popular soup from their menu meaning a “Tuscan-Style Soup,” made with 100% clean, unprocessed ingredients.

It’s oh-so-much-better than the restaurant. Seriously.

As my friend said after eating this, “I have a happy food baby in my tummy!” Which is very different from the famous post-Olive Garden lament of “Good LORD! I feel like a beached whale! Somebody roll me out of here!”

This soup is on the decadent end of things, since it’s made with pork sausage and half and half. You can get even more decadent if you want and use heavy cream instead!

Or, you can lighten it up a bit. Use whole milk instead of half and half. Or, for a dairy free/paleo/whole30 version, you can use a can of unsweetened coconut milk.

You could even make this Zuppa Toscana vegan by using a vegan “sausage” and coconut milk!

This soup is creamy, but not thick. The half and half gives it a super rich flavor, that is enhanced because you add it at the end and don’t boil it.

If you want it to be thick, you can add a little flour to the sausage and onions before adding the stock, like in this easy chicken and dumplings recipe. Try 1/4 cup- that should do it!

If you like this Zuppa Toscana recipe, you’ll love this Sausage Breakfast Pizza, this Italian Orzo, Spinach, and Meatball Soup, and these Italian Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms.

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