Italian Sausage Orzo Soup

June. School is out and the house has shifted into its summer frequency — louder, messier, later. The four of them are home all day, and the grocery bill has done what the grocery bill always does in June: doubled. Tyler eats like he is building a second Tyler inside the first one. Justin eats like food is a competition he intends to win. Amber eats selectively and with the quiet precision of a fifteen-year-old who has opinions about food she did not have six months ago. Josie eats everything and then asks for ice cream, which is fair because it is June and ice cream is a constitutional right in June.

I hauled a load to Sioux City Monday through Wednesday. The slow cooker had pulled pork — pork shoulder, root beer, a squeeze of BBQ sauce. I pulled into a truck stop in Norfolk and ate it on a bun with coleslaw from a gas station deli, which sounds depressing and was actually perfect, because the pork was good and the cab was cool and the parking lot was quiet and sometimes perfection is just the absence of chaos.

Dave finished the mudroom this weekend. Three weekends of work, Tyler handing him boards and tools, and now there is a room between the back door and the kitchen where boots go to die and coats go to hang and the mess of six people transitioning between outside and inside has a place to happen that is not my clean floor. Dave is proud of it. Tyler is proud that he helped. I am proud that I no longer step on wet boots at 5 a.m. in the dark. We all have our metrics for success.

I made spaghetti for dinner Friday — the big pot, the one that feeds eight because I always cook for eight even though we are six, because leftovers are tomorrow's lunch and tomorrow's lunch is today's gift to tomorrow's Brenda. Ground beef and Italian sausage in the sauce, garlic bread from the oven, a salad that the kids will ignore because salad is the vegetable equivalent of homework — they know it is good for them and they do not care. The spaghetti disappeared. The salad survived. The garlic bread was fought over. This is the natural order of things.

The Italian sausage in that Friday spaghetti sauce is what got me thinking about this one — because once I’ve got a pound of Italian sausage doing its thing in a hot pan, filling the kitchen with that garlic-and-fennel smell, I’m already halfway to happy. This soup has the same energy as that big pot of spaghetti: it feeds a crowd, it uses ingredients I always have, and it hits the table fast enough that nobody has time to get impatient. For a household running on summer chaos and the lingering pride of a finished mudroom, fast and filling is exactly the right recipe.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 lb Italian sausage (mild or hot), casings removed
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
6 cups chicken broth
1 cup orzo pasta, uncooked
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
2 cups fresh spinach or baby kale
Salt and black pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Instructions

Brown the sausage. In a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-high heat, cook the Italian sausage, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon, until browned and cooked through, about 6–8 minutes. Drain excess fat if needed.
Sauté the aromatics. Add the diced onion, carrots, and celery to the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and Italian seasoning and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Add tomatoes and broth. Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices and the chicken broth. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the red pepper flakes if using. Bring to a boil.
Cook the orzo. Once boiling, stir in the orzo. Reduce heat to a steady simmer and cook uncovered for 10–12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the orzo is tender.
Add greens and season. Stir in the spinach or baby kale and cook 1–2 minutes until wilted. Taste and adjust with salt and black pepper as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with grated Parmesan. Serve with crusty bread or garlic bread alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Italian Sausage Orzo Soup — The Big-Pot Energy of a June Friday Night