This is a very pretty soup. Easy to make. I would start by boiling the beans and wait till the beans are almost cooked untill cooking the sausages. Also it does not really say what to do with the saffron once it is soaking. I assumed just add it to the pot. As a personal preference I lowered the amount of the garlic. I used italian sausage and added some black and cayenne peppers to add the spice of the andouille. I will definitely make again and next time use the adouille. Really enjoyed it.
I ended up changing the recipe at little due to what I had on hand. I substituted green bell pepper for the red turkey sausage for the andouille and I browned the sausage in cajun seasoning instead of adding sweet paprika. I'm sure the recipe is just as delicious as originally intended but this is what was in the kitchen. My husband and I thought this soup was awesome. I will definitely cook it again.
Mine turned out more like a stew but it was really good! I used navy beans instead of Northern beans but they worked great.
I just made this soup and it is definaley a keeper. I did make a few changes however. I used navy beans since I don't care for northern beans. And I've never heard of saffron so I left that out. And I used italian sausage and added red pepper flakes to spice it up and a few chicken bouillion cubes. I tossed everything in the crock pot except the sausage and kale. When everything was almost done I added my cooked meat and sauted kale and cooked another hour to blend in. This is absolutely yummy!
This was good but I didn't want to spend 2.5 hours making this so I used fully cooked chicken jalapeno sausage and canned cannelini beans and changed the prep to make this just under an hour from start to finish. I sauteed the onions and the chopped sausage until onion was tender. Added the garlic paprika bell pepper and kale and cooked a few minutes. Added 4 cups homemade chicken broth saffron and rinsed beans. Simmered for 10 minutes.
I love this recipe. I have made it several times. Even my kids eat it. The sausage is very important to this soup -- make sure it is andouille sausage. It adds much of the flavor. Also I used canned beans and started the recipe at step 3. It makes this soup far less time consuming.
This has good meaning behind it. Very good tasting ingredients here. However there is not NEARLY enough liquid to make this a "soup" It is more like a dense stew. I had to increase the chicken broth by 2 cups and then add another cup of water near the end to stop the sodium from creeping up. I love Kale in this and I added 1 link chorizo along with 2 andouille sausages - came out great!
Spanish Style White Bean & Sausage Soup Haiku: "Fail soup I am sad. Directions flawed but good taste. (But on the next day.)" I was mortified to serve this to company only to find that the beans were still hard as pebbles. I followed the recipe only simmering my beans for more like 3 hrs. and simmered the entire soup for an additional 2 hrs. I couldn't quite get the 1st step of what? Boiling the andouille only to brown it later? Also it doesn't clarify as to when to return the saffron/broth to the pot so I just did that while it was simmering. I was overjoyed at the thought of this recipe as I leap for anything that calls for either saffron (treasured spice that I so rarely use) or andouille (so tasty!) and loved the idea of using kale in a soup. And speaking of calling it "soup" - no way this definitely needed additional liquid as others have mentioned in their reviews. Sooo we boiled and re-simmered the soup last night and made sandwiches and I've just now sat down to a "real" bowl of the soup and yes it tastes fantastic - very unusual spicy and earthy. I hope to make it again but will just use canned beans and maybe dump everything except the kale in the crockpot to decrease the troublesome steps.
I cut back on the sausage a bit and used fire-roasted tomatoes for a smokier flavor.
