About a year ago I tried Kale for the first time. It's just one of those ingredients I don't gravitate towards naturally. I never really know what to do with it. While getting it weekly from the CSA this summer I experimented with a few ideas but I still haven't really adopted into our weekly menu much.
One way to start is to actually BUY it. So at my last shopping trip I picked up a huge bunch. There's only one problem, I've been staring at it in the fridge for days completely uninspired.
What's an uninspired food blogger to do? Turned to Facebook and Twitter of course!
From soups, to chips, to massaged salads the ideas kept rolling in. Just reading them began to get my creative juices flowing!
Then I remembered I also bought a bag of Boca Ground Crumbles for the first time (I had a coupon they sent me.)
I decided to put the two together and make a spicy soup.
The result was better then I ever anticipated! I now see why a lot of kale soups have sausage in them. It definitly holds up to the meatiness. I was considering adding white beans to this but I didn't realize I was all out. I think they would make a great addition. But even without I found the soup super satisfying ESPECIALLY with day old bread to dip! 
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion chopped
- 6 garlic cloves minced
- ½ tbsp pepper flakes
- ½ tbsp oregano
- ½ tbsp thyme
- 4 tbsp bacon bits (meatless for the vegetarians)
- 2 cups Soy Crumbles (can be frozen) (I used Boca - you could use ground beef or sausage but you may want to cut back on the spices)
½ cup water - 4 cups kale rinsed and chopped (268 g)
- 8 cups of your favorite broth or stock (veg or chicken)
Heat the olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat and sauté the onion and garlic until transparent and browning.
Add the pepper flakes, oregano, thyme and bacon bits. Stir to coat everything. Add the soy crumbles and the ½ cup of water as your pot may be getting a bit dry at this point.
Stir and coat everything allowing the flavors to merge. I could not believe how much the soy crumbles looked like beef! I totally think I can sneak them by the hubby in a few meals.
Anyway, add the kale and stir in. It will look like a ton. This is one "cup" according to NutritionData.com at 67 grams...
I added 4 containers that size and it wilted down in no time. Just keep stirring. Once it wilts add the broth and cook for about 10 minutes before lowering to a simmer.
I served with a sprinkle of Parmesan two small slices of day old bread that was AWESOME dipped in the broth.
As for the nutritional information, I'm basing it on a standard cup but I ate two and that's what you see pictured. Two cups was a lot of soup and quit filling so I'll let you decide, you can always double the serving.
| Servings | Amt per Serving | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 1 cup | |||
| Calories | Fat | Fiber | WWPs | |
| 85 | 3g | 2g | old: 2 | new: 2 |
| Sugar | Sat Fat | Carbs | Protein | |
| 2g | 0g | 9g | 8g | |
So glad you liked it and thanks for the comment. I forgot about this one! 🙂
I rarely leave comments on recipes I've tried, but I can't help but feel the need to rave about this recipe. I found this recipe through a google search for "kale soup" and I made it this morning. I made a couple of very minor edits (added ground pork instead of Boca, added some baby spinach I had in the fridge in addition to the kale, and cut back on the pepper flakes since I was making it with my 2 year old in mind). It was absolutely fabulous!! Great flavour, with just enough heat. Even my 2yr old liked it, which of course, gives it double thumbs up in my book! I will definitely be making this again and again.
I like kale but Im not sure about this quite yet. I must try it though 🙂 I found an amazing recipe in Bon Appetit magazine for December containing a kale energy shake...its very very VERY good!
Great recipe. I improvised with what I had and since I didn't have a full 4 cups kale I added a large can black beans and 2 handfuls brown rice pasta macaroni elbows! Super yummy!!! Thanks!!!
Holy Cow! I made this last night and just got done eating it for lunch today... SOOO delish!!! Super filling!!
This is a new fav.
Thanks for the great recipe!!
Woo Hoo!
This was so good. I added mushrooms. I love Kale.
You could but spinach doesn't hold up as as good as kale. Kale is a bit "meatier" I would make a smaller amount as I don't think the leftovers would be as good. If you ever used spinach in soup I think you'll understand.
Could you use spinach instead of kale?
Nancy - Just print! It should come out only with the recipe and my blurb at the top!
As for the nutritional info.... I use a combination of websites, nutritiondata.com, fitday.com, and sometimes sparkpeople.com. I measure everything on my handy dandy electronic scale and tally up the totals. It’s really not that hard, just time consuming.
Leanne - I'm not sure if I'll be signing up again. At least not with the same farm. It was a bit out of the way for us and there are closer options in my community. I'll either travel the farmers market circuit or find a closer one. We'll see this spring!
This sounds delicious. I was looking at a big bag of kale in the supermarket on Sunday, but I wasn't sure what I could do with all that kale. Now, I can't wait to try this soup!
I have two quick questions:
1. Is there a place I click to get a printable version of the recipe?
2. I really appreciate that you include the calories and nutritional values in your recipes. Is there a web site you use to calculate it all? Every time I make something I have to figure out the counts of each ingredient and then recalculate for the whole recipe. There has got to be a better way!
I had read about kale chips in my All You magazine. I'll give them a shot, but chips out of a leafy veg? Meh. I'm not holding my breath.I DO like when my spinach gets crunchy in the egg muffins, so there may be some hope...Kale in eggs?(is that allowed?)
Your SOUP, however, looks marvelous!! Kale looks like it would make a great Italian Wedding soup. I would use real meat or Quorn crumbles. Soy crumbs give me a headache! Quorn, I like and can deal with. It's soy free and has a meatier flavor.
That looks great! We just signed up for a CSA so I'm going to keep that in mind for this summer! It'd be a great soup to freeze also, if we didn't feel like eating soup right away.
Are you doing the CSA again?
This looks interesting. I have a vita mixer and make green smoothies with kale all the time.. add to a head of romaine, parsley, a few celery stalks, juice of a lemon, and a bag of frozen bluberries, plus a add a few packets of truvia... It doesn't sound good, but it tastes surprisingly good, and you can feel your body detoxing almost immediately!
This looks healthy and delicious! I would love to try this at home. Soup is the thing this season with all the snow!
Wish I liked kale - but the kale chips were ugh to me. I had high hopes for them. I want to like kale because it's a super good for you food - but perhaps I will need to use it in smaller amounts... :O)
I love mixing kale into my soup! It's especially good in some gumbo. 😉
I like Kale! This sounds good too. I found a recipe in my Cooking Light cookbook for a sigh & ragout recipe. It is basically a fillet of fish that you cook and place on top of this wonderful ragout of kale and other veggies and it has a bit of pancetta or something like that in and it is just the best flavors! It has given me ideas as to how I can use Kale more in other recipes too - if you have a chance I encourage you to find the recipe. I didn't see it on their website but obviously it is in the cookbook (maybe at the library).
I love when you try new things and share them - it really inspires me 🙂
Happy New Year Roni!
The soup sounds good-I'm not a fan of kale either. Tried kale chips-nah 🙂