Creamy Sausage and Tortellini Soup

Ingredients

1 pound spicy Italian ground sausage
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning 
1 yellow onion small, diced 

4 cloves garlic minced
5 cups chicken broth or water
3 carrots medium, diced into ½-inch coins
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
8 oz Nuovo cheese Tortelloni
4 oz fresh spinach
1 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons fresh thyme
⅓ cup chopped cooked bacon or cooked prosciutto
⅓ cup American Grana, grated

Directions:

In a large saucepan, cook sausage together with Italian seasoning, chopped onion, and minced garlic until browned.
Add chicken broth, diced carrots, and red pepper flakes, and bring to a boil. Once the soup is boiling, reduce it to simmer (a visible boil), cover the pot with a lid, and cook for 10 or 15 minutes until the carrots are tender.
Add tortellini and spinach to soup in the pot, cover with a lid and boil on low simmer for about 5 minutes or until tortellini is cooked and the spinach is wilted
Remove the soup from the heat. Add the cream and stir it in.
Season with salt and more red pepper flakes (add spice especially if you did not use spicy sausage).
Top with bacon or prosciutto, grated parmesan cheese, and fresh thyme.

Notes
Use prosciutto as a topping. This recipe works great with cooked prosciutto! Cook prosciutto in the preheated oven at 375 F for about 10 minutes until crispy. Chop it up - and it will look like fine bacon bits! Sprinkle over the soup.

adapted from Julia's Album