This yummy tortellini soup is made with Italian sausage and spinach. A delicious and easy dinner. Great for serving a crowd. Make it a crockpot or on the stove.
In a dutch oven or large pot over medium-high heat, sauté sausage with carrots, celery and onion for about 12 minutes, stirring frequently and breaking up sausage into small chunks. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute.*If finishing in a slow cooker, transfer everything to your crockpot when done.
Add chicken stock and bay leaves and bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium-low.
Add fresh tortellini and fresh spinach. Cook on medium low for 3 minutes then serve.*If using dry tortellini, add that first and cook for 10 minutes, adding the fresh spinach the last 3 minutes of cooking.
Notes
Whenever I sauté carrots, celery, and onion I chop and add the carrots to the pot first. Then while those start to cook, I chop the celery and then add that. Finally the same with the onion—chop that after I add the celery then add it to the pot. Reason being, the carrots are tougher and need a little more cook time, celery a little more than the onion. And you can reduce the overall cook time by chopping while you've started cooking rather than chopping everything in advance.