Spicy Onion Soup with Sausage is a robust French onion based soup on steroids- extra flavor, onions, green chiles, and really spicy sausage – yummy!
This is fundamentally a French Onion Soup … but with killer spicy sausage, green chiles, and a few added flavor enhancers to make it truly memorable. It’s easy to make and guaranteed to be a hit. For a get together, I would double or quadruple it.
I started with a 32-oz carton of ready-made French Onion Soup (Pacific Foods, rather bland, nothing special); you could just as well use two 14.5 oz cans of beef broth or a packet of Lipton French Onion Soup (made per directions). It’s the flavorful additions that really make this special.
The rest of the ingredients are common flavor enhancers … except the sausage. I used half of a 1 lb. chubb of Tennessee Pride Hot Country Sausage. This is a no-fail, forgiving recipe, so you can use whatever sausage you like. I generally have a preference for Southern-style hot breakfast sausage that comes in a chubb. I grew up in the South where we often had patties of this kind of sausage with breakfast; wow – lots of flavor, great texture, and undoubtably plenty of fat and calories. That’s what I call real comfort food. I always keep this kind of sausage in my freezer. (Yeah, I’ve also got chorizo and both mild and hot Italian sausage.)
I created this recipe tweaking as I went, so the amounts of beef bouillon, vinegar, and chiles will give you the spicy and very robust flavor I was shooting for. If you want to tone it down, you can go easy adjusting to taste as you go along. Personally, I feel I ended up with one of the very best, incredibly satisfying onion soups I’ve ever had. This is an ideal soup to serve after a day in the snow. If you want a more Southwestern flavor, you can add chili powder and cumin. I was aiming more for spicy and flavorful than ethnic.
Also, I would generally double the recipe, as this only serves about 4 people. I made it on the stove, but it’s ideal for a slow cooker and can be left on low for hours. Hope you enjoy this!
- 1 32 oz carton of French Onion Soup (or 2 14.5 oz cans beef broth)
- 1 large yellow onion
- ½ of 1 lb chubb of hot breakfast sausage
- 1 tbsp beef bouillon
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ½ cup diced medium-hot green chiles
- Optional: Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese, shredded
- Cut onion into thin slices and quarter each slice, making about 2-inch strips of onion.
- Brown the sausage in a medium pot, breaking it up into small chunks. Drain the fat off, leaving about 2 tbsp in the skillet to cook the onions in. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Fry the onions in the 2 tbsp fat over medium heat until soft and starting to brown. Add the cooked sausage back in and pour the French Onion Soup (or beef broth) in.
- Stir well and add in the beef bouillon and vinegar; you may want to add a bit of each and taste as you go if you want it on the mild side.
- Stir in the green chiles, simmer for a few minutes and serve.
- Optional: top with shredded Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese.
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