Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup
Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup is the perfect thing to make when it’s starting to get cold but zucchini is still abundant! And I think the combination of zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and Italian Sausage is perfect in this easy stovetop soup!
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Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup is a recipe that’s getting an update today, and this soup is an example of the way the internet is always changing! I’m saying that because I used to make this soup with zucchini noodles. But now those are not popular like they used to be, and Kara and I loved the new version of this soup with chunks of zucchini.
Since I’ve been sharing recipes for more than 20 years, I’m constantly updating the older recipes! But when I update a recipe, I always remind myself that the original version probably still has some fans. So here’s a link to the printer-friendly version of the soup with zucchini noodles in case anyone is looking for that.
Besides making it with chunks of zucchini, we also bumped up the spices a bit in this updated soup. And we ate it with some coarsely-grated Parmesan cheese, which went perfectly with the flavors of the soup. I think this is a perfect soup for welcoming fall, even if you have to buy a couple of zucchini to make it!
What ingredients do you need for this recipe?
(This is only a list of ingredients; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe with ingredient amounts.)
- pork Italian Sausage
- Olive Oil (affiliate link)
- canned chicken broth (affiliate link) or homemade chicken stock
- canned petite diced tomatoes
- tomato paste (affiliate link)
- Dried Basil (affiliate link)
- Italian Seasoning (affiliate link)
- ground fennel (affiliate link)
- Spike Seasoning (affiliate link)
- red bell pepper
- green bell pepper
- onion
- zucchini
- salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
- coarsely-grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
What sausage did I use for the Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup?
I originally made this soup with spicy turkey Italian Sausage. Then that disappeared from the stores near me, so now I use spicy pork Italian Sausage from Kroger, and the one I buy has only 1 carb per sausage. There are many good brands, but be sure to check that the sausage you buy doesn’t have added sugar if you want the soup to be low in carbs.
How low in carbs is Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup?
This completely delicious soup with Italian sausage, zucchini, peppers, and canned tomatoes only has 9 net carbs per serving and 17 grams of protein!
What if you don’t have all the spices we used in this Italian Sausage soup?
One thing that gives this soup amazing flavor is simmering the sausage with chicken broth, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, dried basil, Italian Seasoning, ground fennel, and Spike Seasoning. I highly recommend using all those spices if you can (especially the ground fennel, which adds amazing flavor!) But that isn’t happening for you, just use a bit more of the spices you do have and I’m sure the soup will still be tasty.
Can you make Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup with extra-large zucchini?
I made this soup with two medium zucchini, about ten inches long. But I know some people get giant zucchini showing up in the garden at this time of year. If you have one of those and want to use it, I would cut away the large inner seeds and trim some of the fleshy part before you chop the zucchini into pieces for the soup.
How to Make Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup:
(This is only a summary of the steps for the recipe; please scroll down for complete printable recipe. Or if you use the JUMP TO RECIPE link at the top of the page, it will take you directly to the complete recipe.)
- Heat oil in a large frying pan, squeeze sausage out of casings, and start to brown the sausage.
- While sausage browns, chop the onion, red bell pepper, and green bell pepper.
- When sausage is browned, add it to soup pot with chicken broth, petite dice tomatoes, tomato paste, dried basil, Italian Seasoning, ground fennel, and Spike Seasoning, and start to simmer.
- Add the rest of the oil to the pan you browned sausage in, add onions and peppers, and cook for a few minutes.
- Add onions and peppers to the soup and simmer on medium heat about 45 minutes.
- While the soup simmers, cut the zucchini in pieces about 1 inch square, or slightly bigger if you prefer.
- Add zucchini to the soup and simmer on low for 20-30 minutes more, depending on how soft you like the zucchini. (Bad blogger, forgot to take a photo after I did that!)
- Serve Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup hot, with a little freshly grated Parmesan to add at the table if desired!
Make it a Low-Carb Meal:
I might just eat this soup with Italian Sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini for a one-dish meal. But if you wanted to add something else, it would be great with Olive Bread, Savory Almond Flour Bread, or Low-Carb High-Fiber Savory Muffins.
More Soups with Zucchini:
Check out Amazing Zucchini Soup Recipes for more ideas for using zucchini in soup!
Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup
This Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup is low-carb and gluten-free, and it can be dairy-free if you skip the grated Parmesan cheese. This is an ultra flavorful soup to make with zucchini!
Ingredients
- 19.5 oz. pork Italian Sausage (see notes)
- 1 T olive oil
- 8 cups chicken broth (see notes)
- two 14.5 oz. cans petite diced tomatoes
- 2 T tomato paste
- 1 T dried basil
- 1 T Italian Seasoning
- 1 T ground fennel (highly recommended; I love the flavor of this)
- 2 tsp. Spike Seasoning
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1/2 medium onion, chopped
- 2 medium zucchini (see notes)
- salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
- coarsely grated Parmesan Cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan, squeeze sausage out of the casings into the pan, and cook until the sausage is nicely browned, about 10 minutes. (I like to use an old fashioned potato masher (affiliate link) to break the sausage apart.)
- While sausage browns, chop the onion. Remove stem part and seeds from the red and green pepper, and then cut into pieces about 1/2 inch square.
- When sausage is nicely browned, add it to a large soup pot with the canned chicken broth, canned petite dice tomatoes, tomato paste, dried basil, Italian Seasoning, ground fennel, and Spike Seasoning, and start to simmer.
- Add the rest of the olive oil to the pan you browned the sausage in, add chopped onions and peppers, and cook the sausage and peppers for a few minutes
- Add onions and peppers to the soup and simmer on medium heat for about 45 minutes.
- While the soup simmers, cut the zucchini in pieces about 1 inch square, or slightly bigger if you prefer.
- Add zucchini to the soup and simmer on low for 20-30 minutes more, depending on how soft you like the zucchini.
- Season to taste with salt and fresh-ground black pepper and serve the soup hot, with freshly-grated Parmesan to add at the table if desired.
Notes
I love Jenni-O Turkey Italian Sausage but I can't find it any more in Utah, so I use pork sausage. Use hot or sweet Italian sausage, but I like hot sausage for this soup.
Purchased chicken stock will be fine for this soup, but if I had some I'd use my homemade chicken stock.
I used zucchini that was about 10 inches long.
This updated recipe using chopped zucchini instead of zucchini noodles created by Kalyn and Kara.
Nutrition Information
Yield
8Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 305Total Fat 22gSaturated Fat 7gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 15gCholesterol 44mgSodium 1963mgCarbohydrates 12gFiber 3gSugar 6.6gProtein 17g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.
Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup is a good recipe for low-carb diet plans, but maybe not for strict Keto. It would be good for any phase of the original South Beach Diet if you use turkey Italian sausage.
Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Soup Recipes to find more recipes like this one. Use the Diet Type Index to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You might also like to follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest, on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, or on YouTube to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.
Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This soup with Italian sausage, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers was first posted in 2015. The recipe was updated to a version that replaces zucchini noodles with pieces up zucchini and also improved with more information in 2025.
36 Comments on “Italian Sausage Zucchini Soup”
Used chicken sausage since it’s the only one I could find without sugar in two grocery stores! It was really good, very filling, and yes the fennel gives a nice flavor!
So glad you enjoyed the soup!
What size cup is considered a serving.
I don’t measure out the servings, especially not on a recipe like this where the carbs are so low. But the recipe make 8 servings, so a serving is 1/8 of the total amount of the soup.
I used the hot sausage and a can of tomatoes with green chilies. That gave it an extra bit.
Very good
That sounds good to me; glad you enjoyed it!
Made this soup for dinner tonight my only substitution was that I used cumin seeds instead of fennel, great soup recipe
So glad you enjoyed it. That sounds like an interesting flavor.
I am using the nutritional analyzer, wonder what you would say serving size is? 1 cup? my husband and i like the one like this with noodles but I am doing low carb so this is perfect! we really liked it!
I’d say a serving is closer to two cups, maybe somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2. When I estimate the amounts in cups of the ingredient list I get about 15 cups.
Another winner! Didn’t have zucchini so we used cubed cabbage, celery & carrot. Delicious!
That sounds good to me; glad you enjoyed it!
This is one of our favorites. I usually add mushrooms too. We are trying to do low carb so it satisfies our craving for goulash!
So glad you enjoyed it!
This soup was wonderful my husband and I really loved it. The only thing I did different was use tomato sauce instead of paste and added the meat of a whole chicken to it. We froze individual containers so we could take them to lunch and they heat up great. This made over 8 servings and is awesome for meal prep. We will make this again for sure!
So glad you enjoyed it!
That looks absolutely delicious!
Thanks, glad you like it!
* except for the zucchini. I forgot to mention that I just plopped the spiralized zucchini into the boiling soup after the 10 min cook time and let it sit for a few min until it was softer. I didn’t want the zucchini to get mushy.
Fun to hear how that worked for you! You’re smart not to cook the zucchini in the Instant Pot!
I loved all of the flavors in this soup SO MUCH!! Thank you for sharing with us! There was only one problem. My bone broth took so long to make that I was forced to make this in my Instapot because I ran out of time. And it worked perfectly! So I followed all ingredients the same — I just cooked the sausage, and I sautéed the onions and peppers with the meat, during the last few minutes. Then I added all the tomatoes, broth, and seasoning, set my instapot to soup on low for 10 minutes, and it was seriously amazing! Thanks again!
My husband and I maintain a ketogenic diet… Do you think this would be good with about 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream thrown in?
I can’t see why that wouldn’t be good. Or put plenty of grated Parmesan in the soup!
Very good. Will definitely make again. I did add a can of pinto beans – just because we like beans. I'm sure it is delicious without them also. Thank you for all your wonderful recipes
So glad you liked it! And I am always happy when people individualize the recipes to their own taste!
Tried this tonight it was great it's a keeper though in place of the green pepper I used a yellow and a red
So glad you liked it! Love those colorful peppers!
Thanks Dennis; so glad you're enjoying the recipes. I still print them myself all the time!
Kalyn…Thanks again for another great low carb dish. I really love your recipes and have filled up a note book with your goodies! One thing that makes your website great is that you provide a real easy way to print your recipes. Other sites have not woken up yet. Most people don't have a computer next to their stove or kitchen. Keep up the good work! Dennis in Fla.
What a great way to incorporate zucchini noodles! I'm so happy that it's soup season now. Making soup is one of my favorite weekend activities.
Lydia, me too, and I'm already thinking of more soup ideas with zucchini noodles.
How well does this soup keep if some is leftover? Do the noodles get too soggy? If so, perhaps I can portion out what is needed for a meal and add the noodles to it. I use zucchini noodles to so many dishes… I keep them in the fridge and use as a base for recipes using pasta or rice. I often zap a portion for 15-30 seconds, add a small amount of pasta/rice on top, then add main course.
Beth, the zucchini is pretty well-cooked in this soup and I didn't notice any problem in reheating it both after it had been in the fridge for a few days and after it had been frozen. I haven't tried microwaving zucchini noodles, will have to try that!
Just micowaved my for lunch. Delicious
What a delicious looking meaty soup! Would love to try it
Glad you like it!