Creamy Mushroom Soup with Italian Sausage

This hearty, creamy mushroom soup with Italian sausage has the added sophistication of white wine and plenty of herbs and is guaranteed to fill you up!

We’ve been having a lot of uncharacteristically cold days in Charleston this winter. And to me, cold days call for cozy meals. A good stew or a hearty soup warms me right up, preferably served with a big chunk of homemade crusty Dutch oven bread for sopping up the broth or gravy. 

I already made this beef stew with red wine earlier in the week (and it was STILL cold outside!), so I wanted to make something else with a different flavor palette that was just as cozy and filling.

My husband and I recently visited one of our favorite brick-oven pizza joints and had a super-delicious mushroom, sage, and sausage pizza, so I decided to make a soup with all the same flavors.

If you’re a huge fan of mushrooms like I am, you’ll love this creamy mushroom soup on your next cold day. It’s extra-hearty due to the addition of Italian sausage, but the mushrooms are meaty enough on their own to leave out the sausage if you’d like.

Whenever I make recipes with mushrooms, I end up wishing there were more of them because they shrink down so much when you cook them. So I planned ahead this time and used 24 oz. of mushrooms! It was perfect.

And because I used three 8-oz. packages, I mixed it up a bit and used two packs of baby bellas and one package of shitake mushrooms. The more variety the better, in my opinion.

I’d love to make this creamy mushroom soup again with one of those packages of dehydrated mixed wild mushrooms, or even some local ones from the farmer’s market when that’s back in season. Go nuts and pick your favorites!

Cleaning and browning your mushrooms

To make things easier, I went with pre-sliced mushrooms. Usually I find the packages are pretty clean already, but if you do find a little dirt in yours, you can give them a quick rinse (not a prolonged soak) before cooking them. It’s okay, I promise. Alton Brown says so.

You want them to brown, not steam, so make sure you pat them dry with paper towels or a cotton kitchen towel after rinsing them.

After that, the real key to making sure your mushrooms brown in the pan is not to overcrowd them. That’s why I cook the mushrooms for this creamy mushroom soup in three 8-oz. batches rather than all at once.

Packed with extra flavor

I’ve added thyme, sage, and a whole cup of white wine to this creamy mushroom soup to take this recipe from the familiar to the sophisticated and decadent. The herbs add a lovely earthiness to the soup – I used dried but use fresh if you have it.

For the wine, I used some Pinot Grigio we had sitting in the fridge, but use any white wine you’d like.

I usually use (gasp!) the cheap white cooking wine you find next to the vinegars in the grocery store, but any wine you’d actually pour yourself a glass of will taste much better. You hear “only cook with wine you’d drink” all the time, but every time I actually cook with wine I’d drink, it surprises me how much of a difference it makes.

What to serve with your creamy mushroom soup with Italian sausage

Combined with a simple green salad and some of this crusty no-knead Dutch oven bread, this would be the perfect cozy meal for a cold night!

Have you made this recipe? Leave me a rating below and let me know what you thought! 

Creamy Mushroom Soup with Italian Sausage

Servings: 4 servings

Author: Caroline Lindsey

This hearty, creamy mushroom soup with Italian sausage has the added sophistication of white wine and plenty of herbs and is guaranteed to fill you up!

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Ingredients

• 1 lb mild italian sausage
• 1 medium onion diced
• 1/2 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 24 oz. mushrooms I used 16 oz. baby bellas and 8 oz. shitake
• 4 tbsp flour
• 1 cup white wine
• 32 oz. chicken broth
• 1/2 cup whipping cream

Instructions

1. In a Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot, heat to medium and add sausage. Break apart the sausage into small pieces with a wooden spatula. Once it begins to brown, add the onion.

2. Cook for an additional 5 minutes or until onions are translucent and sausage is browned. Add sage, thyme, and garlic and cook for an additional minute. Set aside sausage mixture.

3. In the now-empty Dutch oven, melt 1 tbsp butter and add 1 tbsp olive oil. Brown mushrooms in three 8 oz batches, so as not to crowd the pan. Cook each batch for about 6 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes or so so they have time to get some brown coloring. Set each batch aside as they brown. Add 1 tbsp butter before adding each of the second and third batches.

4. Re-add mushrooms and sausage mixture and remaining 1 tbsp butter.

5. Sprinkle flour over ingredients, and stir until everything is evenly coated. Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly so it doesn’t burn.

6. Add white wine and simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated.
7. Add chicken broth and whipping cream. Cook until warm and thickened.