Portuguese Kale Soup
Who doesn’t love a bowl of piping hot soup on a winter day? Today I bring you a recipe that’s close to my heart: Portuguese Kale Soup 🧡
I’m a little over half Portuguese, and while we didn’t speak the language growing up or eat a ton of traditional Portuguese meals, my mom did make kale soup. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen so many variations of it, which is part of what makes this soup great. You can take things out you may not care for or add more of what you love.
Kale soup, sometimes called Calde Verde, is often referred to as the national soup of Portugal. In its original form, it’s made with Portuguese cabbage or kale, potatoes, and chouriço, which is a Portuguese sausage. Seasoned with salt, pepper, onions and garlic, it’s a simple soup packed with enough flavor to warm your bones this winter. The chouriço provides a lot of flavor and gives it a little kick if you’re using a spicier version. It usually has paprika in it, which is why using smoked paprika brings out more of that deliciousness. I’ve had a few variations that use stew beef (beef cubes you use for beef stew) as well as chouriço, which is fine, but not my favorite. In my opinion, you would really need to season that meat well for it to add flavor to this. Some folks will use cabbage instead of kale, cabbage with kale, only one kind of bean, or sometimes even no beans. You can really doctor this as you’d like it, but no matter which variation you decide on, it’s minimal prep and really doesn’t take long at all. The longer you simmer it, the more flavor of course, but if you’re making this on a week day, you can absolutely have it done in 30-40 minutes. Plus it will be even more delicious the next day for lunch or dinner. In some articles I found, it says this soup was traditionally accompanied by some sort of rye bread for dipping, which sound like an odd flavor to have along side this. However, in Brazil, this soup is served with Pão francês, which seems most like the Papo Secos I referred to in my recipe. Pops are Portuguese rolls that are crusty on the outside, and super fluffy on the inside, making them the best bread for soup-dipping in my opinion. You can probably find them at any Portuguese bakery near you, or your grocery store might have something similar.
So whether you throw stew beef in there, use cabbage or kale, beans or no beans, I hope you enjoy this Portuguese classic!
-S
Ingredients:
8 cups vegetable broth
Kale
3-4 red bliss potatoes, diced (peeled or unpeeled)
Portuguese chouriço, sliced (typically comes in packages of two links, use both)
1 large yellow onion, diced
Olive oil
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can cannelloni beans, rinsed and drained
Garlic powder, to taste
Smoked paprika, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
Method:
Sauté chouriço in olive oil with onions and garlic in a large pot for 3-5 minutes. The meat is already cooked, so a few minutes will do.
Rinse kale and tear leafy portions from the stems. Add the kale, potatoes, and spices to the pot and simmer for 30 minutes.
Add beans and cook on low so the potatoes finish cooking and beans warm up.
Keep simmering for more flavor, or serve once the potatoes are cooked though.
Serve with Portuguese “pops” - Papo Secos, or other crusty rolls for dipping.