Inside: A bowl of comfort and warmth and healing–Butternut Beer Brats Soup revisited. With winter still upon us, it’s worth another look. And did I mention it’s simple to make?
Soup. A bowl of comfort and warmth and healing. I don’t know about you, but that’s what fits the bill right now. Though I posted this recipe over a year ago when I did a short series on soups, I make this quite often, so I wanted to share the recipe again. It’s worth revisiting.
For many years we had a soup standoff in our household. I would try making soup for dinner and Hubs would grudgingly eat it, claiming that soup wasn’t a real meal because it didn’t stick with you. This was not the rewarding repast for one who has toiled all day in the salt mines.
So I tried upping my game, serving steaming hot yeast rolls or fresh from the oven biscuits to go along with what I considered to be a substantial bowl of comfort. Perfect, right? Wrong! He only became more cranky, as did I, so I finally abandoned the whole notion. Soup for dinner was officially banned. (Thankfully that didn’t include chili.) I resigned myself to a quick soup fix from the microwave just for me during my lunches at home.
Then one night I got a craving and made a mock potato soup–cauliflower taking the place of the spuds–while fixing Hubs an entirely different meal. “I know you don’t like soup for dinner,” I said, “but you’re welcome to try some of this if you want. It’s really pretty good.”
He did try it–and liked it. Every so often I would make that soup, served alongside some beefy main dish, and he’d eat it. Gradually, I removed the main dish and served the soup as the focus, paired with a side. But not often. Then Mike decided to completely overhaul his eating habits and lose weight. That first winter he came to me and said, “Could we do more soups?”
So here we are, six years later, happily residing in Soup Town, where the only requirement is the soup be tasty and fit according to our low carb ways.
And our dinner table is a much better place.
- 1 package of beer brats pork sausage fresh links (5 brats)
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 4 cups of cooked butternut squash, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 4 cups of chicken bone broth or chicken stock
- salt and pepper to taste
- Brown the brats in large soup pot over medium heat, remove from pot, and slice them into bite-sized pieces when cool enough to handle.
- Saute the onion until translucent in the same pot and return the brats to the pot and cook another minute or so.
- Add the broth to deglaze the pan.
- Add the butternut squash and seasonings.
- Simmer for ten minutes or longer to let the flavors mingle.
- Enjoy!
A few quick notes. . . If you want to lighten this soup even more, you can use fresh link turkey sausage. I’ve tried the sweet Italian kind, and it works well. You can also use a different flavor of brats. I bake the squash ahead of time, but you might try buying diced, uncooked butternut squash from the produce section and allow this to cook in the broth. Of course, you’d need additional cooking time.
Enjoy the soup!
Do you serve soup often at your house? Tell us your soup tales in the comments.
Related posts:
Simple Suppers: Creamy Cheesy Cauliflower Soup
How to Make Chicken Bone Broth
Simple Suppers: Classic Broccoli Cheese Soup
Posts from a year ago: