Zuppa Toscana in the instant pot!

As someone who doesn't frequent Olive Garden I had never really heard of their zuppa toscana. When I started looking for Instant Pot recipes, I was seeing rave reviews of it all over the place so I thought I'd try it for myself!

I made a variation of the recipe from this old gal, and it's amazing! Now I want to go to Olive Garden to try theirs and see how mine compares!

I made a few alterations of the recipe I started with of course, I have to make it my own!

First, I love pancetta and I often find it easier to cook with than bacon because it already comes cut up into little cubes. I buy it in 4oz packages at Aldi for a little over $2. Especially since the original recipe only called for 4 strips of bacon, I used pancetta instead, I didn't want most of a package of bacon laying around. Or you know, in my stomach.

I also just cooked the pancetta with the sausage and left it in because, laziness. I really did not see any reason to take it out and then put it back on top, except maybe it makes a nicer photo op!

The meat and potatoes in the pot!

The other big switch was to use spinach instead of kale. This is an easy swap. I don't like kale very much so I usually will sub spinach for kale. I also don't like onions so I used onion powder. These are just personal preferences.

The finished product!

I will definitely be making this soup again, it was so delicious! I had planned to make a big batch to have on hand for the work week but that didn't really work out because we ate so much of it there was barely any left! whoops!

Ingredients:

• a little bit of olive oil
• 2 tsp of minced garlic (I use this kind in the jar)
• 12 oz pork sausage (you could use a pound, I was also making a quiche and borrowed a little from my pound!)
• 4oz pancetta
• 3 Large Potatoes cut into bite sized slices
• 1 1/2 quarts chicken stock (I used low sodium)
• ground pepper to taste
• onion powder to taste
• 3 cups chopped fresh spinach
• 1 cup Heavy Cream

To make it my way you will do as follows:
Turn your instant pot or other electric pressure cooker on saute normal heat (ie not high or low) and pour a small amount of olive oil in the bottom. Allow to heat for 1-2 minutes and add your garlic sauteing for 2-3 minutes. Add the sausage and pancetta to the pot and brown the meat. When the meat is fully cooked (5-7 minutes) turn the pot off and allow to cool before draining the grease (keep the sausage and pancetta in the pot).

Add the potatoes and chicken stock, a little pepper and onion powder (according to your preference) to the pot and set the pressure cooker to manual and set for 5 minutes. After the cook time finishes allow a 10 minute natural pressure release and then you can release the remaining pressure with quick release (I actually let mine NPR 15 minutes because I was busy, and it still turned out fine). Add the spinach and cream. Stir to combine and allow the spinach to wilt before serving.

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