Creamy vegan gnocchi soup with sausage and kale

Creamy vegan gnocchi soup dotted with vegan sausage and kale in bowl.

4.94 from 15 votes

Creamy vegan gnocchi soup with sausage and kale

Warming & fragrant, this satisfying soup is the definition of cozy. It's packed with curly kale, veggie sausage, and roasted gnocchi.

(Want to skip a step? You can warm the shelf-stable gnocchi right in the soup pot instead. Look for the directions in the "notes" section below.)

Prep Time10

Cook Time35

Total Time45

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Italian, Vegan

Keyword: comfort food, winter food

Servings: people

Calories: 270kcal

Author: Cadry Nelson

Ingredients

1 (16-ounce) package gnocchi from shelf stable package
2 Tablespoons avocado oil divided, plus more if needed
7 ½ cups water divided (plus extra for boiling gnocchi)
¾ cup raw cashews
3 veggie sausages sliced (10.5 ounces total of sausage) I use Beyond Meat hot Italian sausage links
2 ¼ cups chopped yellow onion
8 to 9 cloves garlic minced
1 ½ teaspoons dried basil
1 ½ teaspoons dried oregano
1 ½ teaspoons granulated onion
1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon, no chicken base or 3 vegetable bouillon cubes
5 packed cups chopped curly kale About 3-4 large leaves, with ribs removed
1 teaspoon salt plus more to taste
Generous dash of pepper or to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Fill a medium-sized pot with water, and bring to a boil.
Add gnocchi* to pot. Boil for a couple minutes, until the gnocchi rises to the top of the pot.
Drain in a colander. Then move the gnocchi to a clean kitchen towel to dry. (It roasts better when it's dry.)
Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Then lay the gnocchi on it and drizzle with 1 Tablespoon of oil. Spread the gnocchi evenly across the baking sheet. Then move to the oven.
Roast for 10 minutes, stopping once to flip. (If needed, cook up to 5 minutes longer for browning.) Once it has finished cooking, remove from the oven & set aside.
While the gnocchi roasts, continue with the recipe.
First, make the cashew cream. In a high-speed blender,** blend 1 ½ cups water with ¾ cup raw cashews until completely smooth. (Stop and scrape down the sides if needed.) You'll know it's done when you don't hear any cracking sounds in the blender.
Set aside to use later.
Bring a soup pot to a medium heat with remaining Tablespoon of oil.
Once the oil is hot enough, add sausage pieces to pot & brown them. As they cook, break the pieces up with your spatula.
Once the sausage pieces are browned & a little crisp around the edges, add onions.**** (If the pot seems too dry, you can add a little more oil.)
Saute for a few minutes. Once the onions are starting to get translucent and fragrant, add the garlic and cook a couple minutes more.
Add dried basil, dried oregano, and granulated onion, and combine with the onions and garlic.
Add remaining 6 cups of water to the pot & Better Than Bouillon no chicken base (or your preferred bouillon).
Stir the soup & use the spoon to pick up any remaining bits of sausage stuck to the inside of the pot. Bring the water to a simmer.
Put the chopped kale into the pot. It will look like a lot of kale, but it will quickly wilt as it comes into contact with the hot liquid. It should be even with the liquid in a few minutes.
Finally, add the cashew cream from the blender, salt, and pepper to the pot. Stir to evenly combine. Cook for 5 more minutes while the flavors intertwine.
Just before serving, add the roasted gnocchi to the soup pot.

Notes

*Be sure to read the ingredients for your gnocchi.

Many shelf-stable varieties are vegan, but some contain eggs.

**Standard blender instructions

If you have a high speed blender, you can simply add the raw cashews to the blender with water, and it will be able to blend them smoothly. However, if you’re using a standard blender, it will need some help to get perfectly smooth.

You have 4 options:

Grind the dry raw cashews in a clean coffee grinder until they have the consistency of flour. Then add the ground cashews to the blender with the listed 1 ½ cups of water. (This is my preferred option.)
Put raw cashews in a bowl, cover them in additional water, and allow them to soak for a few hours to soften them. Then drain the cashews and add them to the blender with the listed 1 ½ cups of water.
Boil the raw cashews in additional water for 15 minutes. Then drain & add to the blender with 1 ½ cups of water.
Microwave raw cashews in additional water for 2 minutes. Then drain & add to the blender with 1 ½ cups of water.

***Sausage options

I use Beyond Meat hot Italian sausage link for this recipe. However, feel free to use the veggie sausage of your choice. Impossible sausage or Field Roast apple sage would also be very good.

For a whole foods option, replace sausage with white beans like cannellini or Great Northern. Add them at the same time as the kale. (I'd use one drained can of beans, about 1 ½ cups.)

****Crispy sausage tips

If you'd like to keep the sausage really crispy, remove it from the soup pot before adding the onions & garlic. Then add it back into the soup with the roasted gnocchi.

Otherwise, you can keep it in, as directed in the recipe, and it will continue adding flavor to the soup.

Short on time?

Roasting or air frying the gnocchi makes a firmer texture that holds up nicely in the soup. However, if you're short on time or just want to skip a step, you can simply heat it in the soup pot instead. It will have a softer texture, but the flavor is still very nice.

To warm gnocchi in soup pot, don't boil it separately first. Simply add it to the pot during the last five minutes of cooking (when you add the cashew cream).

Note that this is for gnocchi in shelf stable packaging. I haven't tried adding frozen gnocchi to the soup pot. That may require a longer cooking time to get up to the correct temperature.

Chewy gnocchi instructions

Prefer gnocchi with a chewy texture? Or would you like to freeze this soup? Then ignore the first three steps in the cooking instructions, and follow one of these two cooking methods for the gnocchi instead:

1. Don't boil the gnocchi. Roast it straight from the package. Put shelf stable gnocchi on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, toss with oil, and roast at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. (Stop & flip them after 10 minutes for even browning.)

2. Don't boil the gnocchi. Air fry it straight from the package. Spray shelf-stable gnocchi with oil, and air fry at 390 degrees for 7 to 11 minutes, stopping once or twice to shake the basket, until crispy on the outside.

How to store & reheat

Store any leftovers in a covered container in the refrigerator. It will keep for 3 or 4 days.

Reheat in a pot on the stove or in the microwave. If the soup has become too condensed, add another splash of water until brothy again.

For freezing instructions, see the FAQ in the blog post.

Nutrition