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Turkey Sausage Tortellini Butternut Squash Soup, autumn

Butternut Squash Soup with Turkey Meatballs and Tortellini

A rich, velvety soup is enhanced with easy peasy turkey meatballs and the tortellini of your choice.  This becomes autumn in a bowl by the time you are ready to eat.  Pure comfort, and a heartwarming meal.

Course Soup
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 3-4 turkey sausages uncooked
  • 1 large onion chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 tbsp butter or oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon aleppo pepper , can also use cayenne if this is all you have
  • pinch of ground cinnamon and nutmeg
  • 4 cups butternut squash cubed
  • 1 carrot peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1 apple peeled, cored and roughly chopped
  • 3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
  • 1 sprig of fresh rosemary
  • 1 large sprig fresh sage
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream creme fraiche or canned (unsweetened) coconut milk
  • 12 oz frozen tortellini your choice of flavour

Garnishes, all are optional. Use any that appeal to you

  • 4 tbp fresh chopped apple toss them in a little lemon juice to keep them from browning till serving
  • 4 medium sized sage leaves
  • 4 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
  • 4 tbsp crisped bacon or pancetta, chopped into lardons

Instructions

Turkey Sausage Meatballs

  1. These can be made ahead of time.
  2. Remove the casings from the turkey sausages.
  3. Divide each uncased sausage link into 1 inch sections (depending on the size of the sausage, you should get between 5 and 7 or so sections)
  4. With dampened hands, roll each section into a ball. Place each onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Once it is filled, place it into the freezer to freeze the meatballs. From this point you can freeze them all, use them all, or a bit of both. You will want 5 or so meatballs per person.

Soup

  1. Using a stock pot, sauté the onion in the butter or oil over medium high heat for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another 2 minutes. Do not let them brown though.
  2. Add the salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir to coat.
  3. Add the squash cubes, the carrot and the apple. Toss to mix things up.
  4. Add the stock and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce to a simmer, and add the rosemary and sage sprigs. Cover and let cook till the veggies are tender and can be mashed with a fork.
  5. Remove from the heat and remove the rosemary and sage sprigs.
  6. Using an immersion blender (or a stand blender) blend until it is as smooth as velvet. Add the cream.
  7. Taste and re-season as desired.
  8. Place the pot of soup back onto the heat (medium low) See below for the next step.

Meatballs

  1. When starting the soup, preheat the oven to 425F.
  2. Place the meatballs onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15 minutes. Turn them once or twice. They should have started to brown nicely. They will finish cooking in the soup.
  3. Add them to the soup once the soup has been puréed and is back on the heat.
  4. Leaving the lid partially covered, simmer the meatballs for another 10 minutes or so.

Tortellini

  1. While the soup is almost finished simmering, prepare the tortellini as per the package directions.
  2. This usually involves a pot of salted water brought to a boil, and adding the tortellini. Cook till just tender.
  3. Add these to the soup with the cooked meatballs.
  4. The soup can be garnished with chopped fresh apple, fresh sage leaves, olive oil, cracked black pepper, even crisped bacon or pancetta lardons.

Recipe Notes

If you are going to the bother of preparing JUST enough meatballs, why not purchase double the amount needed, prep all sorts of meatballs and then freeze the ones you don't need. This way you will have them ready to go for other soups.

The soup itself is a gentle riff on Gimme Some Oven's version, here.