Autumn Harvest Soup & Sausage Sage Topping
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This year we bought pumpkins from a local farmer to decorate our front porch with. (If you’d like to see our front porch decor, check it out here.) We planted pumpkins this year and only made it out with one that we ended up feeding to our pigs. We prefer the look of heirloom varieties of pumpkins so that’s what we bought. I also considered when we were buying them that I wanted to use some of them in recipes when we no longer wanted them on the porch. We are going to slowly work our way through those pumpkins as the seasons are changing, and this soup is the first recipe!
If you didn’t already know, all pumpkins are edible. Some pumpkins are more desirable than others. For example, a pie pumpkin is sweeter and smaller, therefore better for making something like a pie. Carving pumpkins are more watery and less flavorful, but if you’ve already carved into a pumpkin, you don’t want to eat that anyway. The pumpkin we are using for this recipe is about 8 inches in diameter and an heirloom variety.
I decided to top this soup with a mixture of ground sausage, bread, sage, and parmesan to add a little savory touch and I think it really rounded out the soup. I’m big on textures, so having something crunchy and chewy and salty to add to this sweet and smooth soup was just the thing! This topping gave the soup an the essence of Thanksgiving. It’s delicious and we’ve already eaten it several more times since making it.
We froze the leftover in these Souper Cubes which are our latest obsession. We have been cooking large batches of things like chicken stock, rice, soups, dog treats, etc. and freezing them in Souper Cubes. We love them because you can freeze food in individual portions and they are square or rectangular so they store well in the freezer. We have really loved being able to go to the freezer and pull out an personal portion of whatever we want to eat. In the past we would freeze in a large batch which means you have to defrost the whole thing and then the bag is bulky and usually freezes in a weird shape that’s hard to store. But freezing in smaller cube portions is literally life changing. I am an Souper Cube evangelist now!
Autumn Harvest Soup Recipe
Makes about 8 cups of soup
Ingredients:
1/2 of an 8” pumpkin, or about 2.5 cups of pumpkin puree
1 medium butternut squash
1 large peeled sweet potato
1 large Vidalia onion
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tbsp. fresh chopped herbs, we used Rosemary, Lemon Thyme, and Sage
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
1 tsp. onion powder
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. olive oil + more for roasting
Directions:
Cut the pumpkin, butternut squash, peeled sweet potato and onion in halves and place on an oiled baking sheet. Roast in the oven at 350 degrees F for 30-45 minutes. All the veggies should be very tender when piercing with a fork.
Heat olive oil in a pot over low-medium heat. Toss in your fresh chopped herbs and cook for about 30 seconds.
Add your broth to the pot and let it warm while you scoop out the flesh of 1/2 the pumpkin and the butternut squash and add to a blender. The other half of the pumpkin can be turned into puree for other recipes. Also add the sweet potato and onion to the blender and blend until smooth. You may have to work in batches depending on the size of your blender.
Add the veggie blend to the warmed herby broth as well as the rest of the seasonings. Stir to combine. Heat for another 10-15 minutes and serve.
Sausage Sage Soup Topping Recipe
Makes about 8 servings of topping
Ingredients:
1 lb. ground breakfast sausage
6 slices bread, cubed
2 tsp. fresh chopped sage
4 Tbsp. parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp. olive oil
salt to taste
Directions:
Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat.
Add sausage into the pan and break it up while cooking. Remove the sausage from the pan when it is cooked through.
Add bread cubes to pan a toast on all sides. Some will get crispy on the edges and some will stay slighty soft.
Once the bread seems like it’s a soft crouton, add in the sage, parmesan cheese, and breadcrumbs and stir to combine.
Heat for about a minute, just enough for the cheese to melt.
Taste for seasoning and add salt as needed. Spoon as much or little as you’d like onto your soup and enjoy!