Elevate Canned Tomato Soup With One Bold And Spicy Ingredient

When it comes to the best easily made comfort foods, it's grilled cheese and tomato soup 4eva. But even the best brands of canned tomato soup sometimes need a little dressing up to be truly delicious. There are a lot of options you can add to jazz up your soup, from fresh herbs, to cheese, to hot sauce or chili powder. One way to add flavor, protein, and texture at the same time, is to add spicy sausage for an easy, hearty flavor boost. You'll find different varieties of spicy sausage from all over the world, like spicy Italian sausage, Spanish or Mexican chorizo, or Andouille, and each will add a unique flavor to the soup.

There are many ways to add the sausage, but one of the easiest ways not only keeps some flavor in the sausage but also adds some directly to the soup. Slice some spicy sausage into discs and add them to a pot. Brown each side to release some of their flavor and add a rich brown crust to each one. Add a can of tomato soup to the pot and let it come to a simmer. As the soup heats up, it absorbs all that fat and flavor released into the pot, suffusing it with plenty of spicy taste. For bonus points, try adding a bit of shredded fresh basil, Parmesan, or croutons to the finished product. 

There's no wrong way to add sausage to tomato soup, provided both foods have been warmed through, but different methods yield different tastes. Some release more oil to flavor the soup, some keep all that spice within the sausage, and others create entirely new flavors. If you want to cook the sausage whole, pan-fry it in a pot until both sides are crisp and the casing just barely starts to crack open. If you notice a bit of oil and juice has leaked out, don't worry, you can heat up your soup in the same pot to save that flavor. Let the meat cool before slicing it into thick discs and adding it to the soup.

To get plenty of texture and flavor into the soup, mince the sausage or even opt for ground rather than cased varieties. This releases far more oil and flavor into the pot and is a great way of straddling the line between tomato soup and a meat sauce. If you use raw ground sausage, be sure you cook it long enough for safe consumption.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of char. If you love the taste of blackened meat, try grilling your sausages before slicing or chopping them. This is a great way of adding an entirely new flavor to the mix that truly elevates a simple can of soup. Just keep in mind the seven commandments of grilling a perfect sausage.