This easy Sausage & Cabbage Soup is the ultimate comfort food. A beautifully luscious soup with smoky sausage, fresh vegetables and of course sweet tender cabbage simmered in a flavorful creamy broth.
When the weather gets cooler, in my house it’s officially soup season. There is just something about a delicious warm bowl of soup that warms your belly from the inside out and this creamy cabbage soup recipe is no exception. If a hug were food, it would be this soup.
Cabbage and Sausage
Cabbage and sausage just seem to go hand in hand. If you’ve read my blog before, you likely know that I love all things cabbage from Cabbage Roll Soup to Sausage and Cabbage cooked on the grill! Cabbage is inexpensive, a little bit goes a long way and once cooked, it’s tender with a delicious sweet flavor.
This is just one of my many favorite cabbage recipesfavorite cabbage recipes. If you don’t cook with cabbage often, you can find lots of great info in The Ultimate Guide to Cabbage!
Irresistibly Creamy
This easy soup starts with sausage, I use kielbasa but you can also use a garlic sausage or pretty much any smoked (fully cooked) sausage that you’d like. I make this cabbage soup with potatoes to give it a nice creamy texture (and to keep my belly full all day long). Fresh carrots and cabbage add both fresh and sweet flavors to this soup and of course cream makes it buttery irresistible.
While this is a creamy soup, keep in mind it is not a thick soup like a chowder. The creamy portion of this soup comes from making a roux. While roux may sound like a fancy or difficult cooking term, it’s really easy. A roux is the base for most white sauces (and even Sausage Gravy) and starts by cooking butter and flour (to get rid of that raw flour flavor) and then adding in milk or cream and cooking until thick and bubbly. The roux is then added to the soup in this recipe giving it a delicious buttery cream flavor.
More Cabbage Soups
- Crock Pot Cabbage Roll Soup – Easy favorite version of cabbage rolls!
- Cabbage and Noodles – Classic Haluski recipe!
- Cabbage and Sausage Foil Packets – Perfect for grilling or baking.
- Cabbage Roll Soup Recipe (video) – All time reader favorite.
- Easy Cabbage Rolls – Best ever homemade cabbage roll recipe.
- Slow Cooker Cabbage Soup – Healthy veggie filled soup!
How to Thicken Your Sausage and Cabbage Soup
If you’d like your soup to be thicker, you can certainly increase the butter/flour mixture to about 3/4 cup each while leaving the milk the same. I also give my potatoes just a slight little mash with a potato masher to help thicken the broth somewhat.
We add a little bit of fresh dill to this soup at the very end for a pop of freshness. If you don’t have fresh dill you can substitute dry dill and add it along with roux to allow it to rehydrate.
Can you Freeze Creamy Cabbage Soup?
Unfortunately, most soup recipes that contain dairy don’t freeze well (non-dairy is usually ok). The soup can separate and the texture can become grainy. I would suggest freezing a portion before adding the dairy in this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 pound smoked sausage sliced
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ⅔ cup diced onion
- 4 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
- ¾ pound potatoes peeled and diced, about 2 to 3 medium
- 2 carrots sliced
- 3 to 4 cups chopped green cabbage
- 1 rib sliced celery
- salt and pepper to taste
- ⅓ cup butter
- ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Instructions
- Cook sausage, onion and butter until onion is tender. Add celery, carrot, potato, cabbage, broth and salt & pepper to taste.
- Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
- Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan. Stir in flour and cook over medium heat about 2 min. Add milk and cream and stir until smooth. Continue whisking until thick and bubbly.
- Once vegetables are tender, add cream mixture into the soup. Allow to simmer 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in dill and parsley.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Soup
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More Creamy Soups to Try
- Baked Potato Soup – Creamy and delicious, this soup recipe tastes just like a loaded baked potato.
- Creamy Seafood Chowder – A cream soup fully loaded with tender chunks of seafood!
- Roasted Cauliflower Soup – A vegetable soup with layers of flavor.
- Potato Leek Soup – A classic restaurant soup made easy at home!
- Ham and Corn Chowder – The best ever corn chowder recipe!
- Creamy Carrot Soup Recipe – Kids love this naturally sweet carrot soup recipe!
This soup is so rich, creamy and full of flavor. I double the recipe, omit the parsley and freeze leftovers into single tupperwares to take for lunch at work, it freezes wonderfully.
Thanks for sharing Erin! Freezing individual sizes is brilliant for a warm lunch on a cool fall day!
Oh my goodness!!! This was so very good! I used evaporated milk in place off the milk and heavy cream. Served it in bread bowls and crumbled bacon on top. Thanks for this recipe. Keep them coming!
That sounds like a tasty variation Deborah! So glad you enjoyed the soup!
Love all these recipes
Thanks Rosario!
I love cabbage so these are some good recipes.
I love cabbage too Diane! This is such a good recipe for it :)
your meal looks so good!
Thank you Kathleen! Enjoy!
Is there a chance I could find out what a serving of this is equal to? Is it about a cup? Thank you in advance!
Hi Ashley, this is just an approximation. But a serving would be roughly 1-1.5 cups of soup.
It looks very nice
Thanks Michelle! Wait until you try it!
My hubby & I love fried cabbage & Smoked Sausage. I found this recipe and thought it might be a yummy change-up on that. I halved the recipe since it was only the two of us and we don’t eat as much as we once did. It made a fairly large pot of goodness!! I figured I’d have plenty left over for lunch the next day. Well…hubby returned for seconds and then for thirds!!! I did have a bit left over but not nearly as much as I thought I would….NO I am not complaining, LOL.
Rather than using milk & cream, I used a small can of Evaporated Milk and enough water to equal the one cup I needed. I also used Better Than Bouillon Chicken broth which is pretty salty, so eliminated the salt. The result was perfect for our taste.
I’ve saved this as a “keeper” and I think I will add a bay leaf to the next batch.
Thank you for this recipe!! It is lovely and the best part is my “picky eater” hubby apparently loved it. That’s a win-win.
Definitely a win-win Kaye! So glad you both loved this recipe…the second and third time around too!
I had some cabbage left from St. Pats day so decided to make your soup..Oh my it was wonderful. I usually am a person who goes by the recipe but I had no cream..substituted a small can of evaporated milk..It worked well and if it is better with cream I probably could not have stood it..lol..Thank you so much..
I am so glad you liked this recipe Micki and were able to make it work with what you had on hand!
This soup was sooooo good! One of the best soups I have ever made in my tiny kitchen. I used an InstaPot to cook the soup. Sautéed the onions and sausage like the recipe said then added all the vegetable and broth and set to pressure cook for 6 minutes and naturally release the pressure. Once the InstaPot was done I added the roux that I made on the stove. This soup was super easy to make, fairly quick, and amazing good. I will definitely be making this again. I used both green and purple cabbage in the soup which gave it a nice pop of color. Thank you so much for sharing this delisious recipe!
Hi Amanda, I am so glad you enjoyed this soup! Thanks for sharing your instant pot directions. This will be helpful to other readers!
Absolutely the most delicious soup I’ve ever had!
Thank you Jake! I am so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Really good soup that was extremely simple to make. It was extremely filling with all the vegetables. My youngest son, who is usually a picky eater, ate two bowls. We added mushrooms to the vegetables, but otherwise, the recipe was unchanged. Excellent!
So happy to hear your son, and you, loved the soup Dan!
Looks delicious. I am on weight watchers so glad to see you include some changes for us to follow.
Enjoy Catherine!
This soup is delicious. My husband said this his new favorite soup! Do you think this will freeze well?
So glad you loved it! Thickened dairy doesn’t always freeze well so I might suggest cooking up until that part and then adding the dairy in while reheating.
This soup is delicious. My Husband and I both loved it. The only change I made was to leave out the parsley (I don’t like it). My Husband said “Put that one in the recipe book”. Thank you so much for sharing!!
So glad your family loved it Susan!
Love, love, love this Sausage Cabbage Soup recipe! A friend mentioned a similar recipe yestèrday so I went searching and found yours. This morning, to my surprise, I found all the ingredients in the refrigerator and decided to make half a batch. It is warming and wonderful! This will become a favorite during the cold weather to come! The only thing I did differently was to add a corn starch slurry at the end to thicken it slightly. Thank you for the post! Wish I could give it ten stars!
So glad you found the recipe Mary, and even better that you had all of the ingredients on hand!
Does anyone have any suggestions of what can be used in place of the flour? To keep it low carb?
I have only tried it as written but perhaps another reader will have a suggestion. You can leave the flour out, the recipe just won’t be quite as creamy.
Jeanie, you can check out Holly’s Easy Low Carb website for more low carb recipes!
my wife and i made the Sausage & Cabbage Soup and really like it thank you so much
Yum…..made this today hubby and I loved it. I added a bit more onion and 2 stocks of celery….and used Little smokies because I had plenty on hand. It was so good creamy and filling. A real comfort soup! I love soup could eat it everyday…thank you for the recipe it’s a keeper!!!
I’m so glad you loved it as much as we did!
I made this tonight and it was great. My go to recipe for cabbage soup now!