It’s soup season again! Fall is the perfect time for a hearty, vegetable-based soup for lunch or supper, like my Tuscan Autumn Soup.

This soup is also very flexible. Use whatever vegetables you have on hand, or use leftover bits from your pantry. The key parts are some leafy greens, some root vegetables, and sausage for protein. Want to make it meat-free? Use beans instead.

In fact, I often add a few canned beans anyway; today I’m using a small jar of navy beans I canned earlier this year. Kidney beans work well too.

My soup usually starts with the same base ingredients: diced onion, carrots, celery, and garlic. Once I sweat and soften this in the bacon grease or olive oil, I add the sausage. To keep it from getting too chewy, remove the casing. Then I drop it in, break it up, and brown it slightly. To be honest, I didn’t have everything ready in advance today, and I got some blackened bits. More flavor, right?

Once the heartiest veggies are soft, add in broth and water. I tend to use a lot of Better Than Bouillon, chicken, and roasted garlic in this Tuscan Autumn Soup. If you do too, watch how much extra salt you add.

Let’s talk vegetables for a minute. Using potatoes is standard. I added in some diced sweet potato today as well, since I had one starting to go bad. Carrots were there in the first step, along with onion and garlic. Any other root vegetable will work too – for example, rutabaga or parsnips.

Add other veggies too, like the mushrooms I sliced and added. Canned tomatoes are fine. I use mostly fire-roasted diced tomatoes. If you have fresh tomatoes on the counter, dice them up and use those. Only have a can of pureed tomatoes? Great, those work too. In fact, I don’t like chunks of tomatoes in soup, so I usually blitz up the diced tomatoes in my blender or with an immersion stick blender anyway.

Lastly, the greens. Kale or collards are the heartiest and most likely to be used in a Tuscan soup. Chop them up and cook them the longest of any greens. Swiss chard or spinach will work, and today I used baby kale and kale I originally bought for salad.

Almost forgot the spices and herbs. A bay leaf will add subtle flavor, and I typically use an Italian herb mix. It’s Tuscan Soup after all. Do you need a kick? Throw in a chili or a few dashes of hot sauce. Salt and pepper, of course. If you want to add other herbs or spices, go for it. Keep tasting as you add to make sure it hits the mark for your family.

Once the root vegetables are cooked, add the greens. The baby greens I used today wilt in just a few minutes. The canned beans are also already cooked and only need to be heated through, so I add them at the same time.

There you have it, Tuscan Autumn Soup. Healthy and full of vegetables, and a little protein. I bet your family will love it too. Don’t forget the bacon! Crumbled on top at the end, or sprinkled over each bowl, it adds another layer of flavor. And who doesn’t love bacon, right? Shaved Parmesan on top of each bowl will make it even more decadent. Yum!

Tell me! And how did you modify the recipe in your kitchen?