Bacon, Sausage and Kale soup…Believe me – it smells and tastes AMAZING! Hello gentle readers. Welcome to my Adventures in Ministry blog! Why are you reading a low carb, Instant Pot recipe on a ministry and Bible website? Well…that is a good question. I’ll give you at least two reasons: #1 – I love to cook. #2 – Of the dozens of articles on this site, the TWO most popular are…recipes! Pioneer Man…is that moniker taken yet?! 😉 Enough nonsense – FLAME ON.
Or, rather, Instant Pot ON. Here’s a recipe for an easy to make AND ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS low carb and healthy soup. This Bacon, Sausage and Kale Soup will fill your family up on cold winter nights and is absolutely LOADED with flavor. I call it BASK soup – BAcon, Sausage, Kale. Clever, right?….Yeah, my wife wasn’t very impressed with the name either…but she did love the soup!
Ingredients: (Don’t overfill your pressure cooker!)
- 16 ounces thick bacon. Thin bacon works also, but is not nearly as hearty.
- 16 ounces smoked sausage. Natural casing sausage is better, but any sausage will do.
- 1 small bunch of chopped green onions
- 1 bell pepper
- 1/2 cauliflower – discard most of the stems.
- 32 ounces of good quality chicken stock
- 12 ounces of well washed kale
- 1 cup of cream. You can actually add more cream – it adds 1 gram of carbs per teaspoon.
- 1 teaspoon of black pepper
- salt to taste (but try it first – usually the chicken stock will add plenty of salt if it is store bought)
- Prepare 16 ounces of thick sliced bacon in your normal way (fry it, microwave it, etc.) Two things on bacon: #1 – DON’T skimp on bacon – save money elsewhere. You don’t know where cheap bacon has been, and high quality bacon is a rare earthly delight. #2 – DON’T cook bacon in your Instant Pot…unless you like soft and soggy bacon. As great as the Instant Pot (or other pressure cooker) is…it is not good at making crispy things. Prep your bacon separately, and set it aside.
- Set your Instant Pot to “Saute.” Add one tablespoon of oil and 16 ounces of sausage. Saute until somewhat crispy – usually about 6-8 minutes. Please let me teach you something about sausage. You CAN use a regular (and cheap!) kind of smoked sausage like the kind on the left. It’s not too bad – and is very easy to prepare. But, considering that the world could end tomorrow…why settle for mediocre sausage?! Get out there and get you some GOOD sausage! The best kind of smoked sausage has natural casing, and a small bit of “snap” when you bite into it. Carpool to work to save money. Don’t be cheap about sausage and bacon!
- Chop and stir in the green onions, bell pepper and cauliflower. Pause for a moment, and smell the steamy goodness.
- Add the kale. Cooked kale is delicious, healthy and not quite as strongly flavored as the fresh variety, so I try and fill up the pot with Kale – right up to the fill line. If you don’t like kale as much, I suppose you can use less.
- Add chicken stock – even with the kale coming up to the fill line, there should be plenty of room leftover for the stock.
- Set your Instant Pot to MANUAL and the timer to 14 minutes. Seal the top and R-E-L-A-X.
- Use the quick release valve to let off the steam. Stir the soup, add the 1 cup of cream (or more, if you’re feeling saucy) and add the bacon pieces. E-N-J-O-Y!!
It is at this point that some might ask, so, how many carbs are in that soup?! Darn it, Jim – I’m a writer (and pastor), not a scientist! If there is enough demand, I will endeavor to calculate the carbs per serving. My educated guess would be about 7-9 grams of carbs per bowl. The cream adds some carbs, as does the kale, the peppers and the green onions, but all are considered low carb foods.
This man is a doctor, not a carb-counter
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