This sausage, potato and kale soup is an adaptation of Olive Garden’s “Zuppa Toscana” soup. I love making soups but when I can adapt them for canning it’s even better. Keeping hearty, home canned soups on hand as saved more weeknight meals than I’d like to admit.

The Ultimate Guide to Preserving Vegetables has step by step instructions for canning almost every vegetable. There are also several soup recipes in the book that I know your family will love.

Safe Canning

To can sausage, potato and kale soup, you need a pressure canner. In fact, to can any meat, legume, and vegetable that isn’t pickled or jammed you need a pressure canner. There is no other safe way.

If you’re new to using a pressure canner, I assure you there is no reason to be scared. Just follow the manufacturers instructions and everything will be fine. Here are some tips for using a pressure canner.

If you don’t have a pressure canner, you can still make this recipe, but you’ll want to freeze it. And yes, the potatoes will probably fall apart.

Another idea is to leave out the potatoes and freeze the soup. Then dehydrate the potatoes and when you cook the soup, put it on early and add the dehydrated potatoes.

This recipe is not a lab tested recipe, it’s a recipe I developed based on the safe soup canning guidelines from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Ingredients for Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup

While I have my own way of doing things in my kitchen, I think it’s important to discuss the ingredients and what you can substitute based on your family’s preferences and what you have on hand.

If you just want the recipe, there’s a printable recipe at the bottom of this post. Feel free to scroll down and print it up.

Sausage

I use a chicken sausage that we get from a local meat co-op but you can use whatever ground sausage your family likes. This can be beef, pork, venison, turkey, or chicken.

One thing to know though, if the sausage has sage in it, it might end up being a bit bitter after being canned. That’s just what sage does in the canner.

That being said, our sausage does have sage, and the soup is a bit bitter but once I add cream to the soup it’s no longer bitter. The first time I made this soup I forgot about the sage and thought I had ruined two batches of soup. I didn’t say anything to my family, added cream and a thickener, and they loved it.

Potatoes

I use white potatoes in this soup, if you prefer sweet potatoes, those can be substituted. High starch potatoes such as russet or baking potatoes are more likely to fall apart than lower starch potatoes such as red or yukon gold potatoes.

Regardless of the potato you use, it has to be peeled for safe canning. I realize this is a pain for those of us who usually cook with the potato skin on but for safe canning it needs to be removed.

Normally when canning potatoes , they need to be parboiled and then packed in jars with fresh hot water. That doesn’t seem to be the recommendation when adding potatoes to a soup or stew.

I’ve scoured the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s website, plus looked a soup recipes on the Ball website and in several of their books and I cannot find a mixed soup recipe that has parboiling potatoes in the instructions.

If parboiling the potatoes make you feel more comfortable then feel free to do that. I choose not to do that extra step.

Kale

While any hearty green can be substituted for the kale, for canning I prefer kale for several reasons. The first is that is holds up to the canning process better than a more tender green like spinach or chard will.

The second reason is that it’s still available in my garden in the summer when it’s too hot for all other greens. And I need to can this soup in the early summer when the potatoes are ready.

Spices

My personal opinion is that the spices that are in the chicken sausage I use makes a fantastic flavored soup. The meat will be fully cooked before you put it into jar, I suggest that you taste the broth and see if it’s flavorful enough for you.

If you think the soup needs more spice you can add any DRIED spice you want and in any amounts you want. Just remember, you can always add more seasonings when you serve the soup, so go easy on the spices.

Some suggested spices to add are salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, oregano, and thyme.

Keeping Track of Preserved Food

While I love preserving food, I hate waste. So I track what I preserve and what we actually use so I make sure to use what I preserve. If you’d like to get the worksheets that I use so you can keep track of your preserved foods, just fill out the form below and they will be emailed to you.

Canning Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup

In a large stockpot, brown the sausage. While it’s cooking wash the vegetables, peel the potatoes, and chop the potatoes and kale.

When the sausage is cooked, add the vegetables to the stock pot and cover with water. You can add chicken broth if you have it but I think it’s flavorful enough without the broth.

Bring to a boil ,then reduce the heat to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the soup is simmering, prepare the jars, lids, and pressure canner. The jars don’t need to be sterilized but they do need to be washed in hot soapy water and kept hot. The lids need to be washed, too.

Prepare the pressure canner according to the manufacturers instructions. This will probably include putting the rack in the bottom and adding a few inches of water. Heat the water but don’t bring it to a boil.

Ladle the soup into the clean, hot jars leaving a one inch head space. I like to ladle the solids into each jar first so that they each have about the same amount. Then I divide the broth between the jars. If I end up short I’ll add hot water to each jar until they each have a one inch head space.

This way I don’t end up with on jar that has lots of meat and potatoes and one that’s mostly broth and kale.

Wipe the rims with a clean, damp cloth. Put the lids and bands on the jars and load them into the pressure canner. Process the filled jars for 90 minutes at 10psi adjusting for altitude if needed.

Follow the processing instructions that came with your pressure canner.

Other Canned Soups

Home canned soups and stews are a great way to preserve the harvest, prepare for emergencies and crazy days when things don’t go as planned. Every summer when the tomato harvest is at it’s heaviest, be sure to make plenty of jars of canned beef stew and canned chili con carne for the winter.

Thanks for sharing with your friends!