I know it’s still summer, guys, but I like soup. I like soup all the time– year round. I especially like soup that only uses one pot, like this chorizo kale soup.

Image from PaleoPot.com
This is because I am a lazy shitbag. Hey, I embrace that about myself. One pot = fewer dishes = happy lazy shitbag. Additionally, this recipe is kind of super easy. The hardest part is chopping things. I’m not making fun if you can’t chop things though, guys. God knows I have chopped my share of digits along with the peppers and onions, but I managed to make this one blood-free.
Chorizo is a kind of Mexican spicy sausage. You can find it in the grocery store next to the brats and hotdogs usually. It’s the sort of thing that Bobby Flay and Alton Brown jizz themselves over. Basically, it’s just a spicy bratwurst. Sometimes you can find it ground, too, but I got the link kind and then chopped it up.
I threw it in the pot and cooked it a bit.
I was supposed to be multitasking here by cooking the chorizo while at the same time chopping vegetables, but I was deathly afraid that the chorizo was going to stick to the stainless steel pot and then it would be a giant mess and everybody would be totally pissed at me (and by everybody I mostly mean myself because no one really cares but me). So I cooked it a little bit and then took it off the heat and chopped vegetables, and then added the vegetables and cooked everything a little bit more. Efficient? No. But hey, it worked.
I also had to be muy muy careful about chopping these veggies because they included a single, tiny habanero pepper that my brother brought me from one of his coworkers’ yards. He warned me about it. And then he told me stories about dudes cutting up habaneros, neglecting to wash their hands, and then going to take a leak and having fiery pepper penis. (If it was a cautionary tale, it sort of missed the intended audience, as I have no penis.)
Once the veggies were cooking, I added the liquid ingredients, which were some chicken stock and coconut milk, I think. Paleo people fuckingย love coconut milk, guys. Probably because it’s the equivalent of heavy cream. In a few years, we’ll find out it’s an endocrine disruptor or causes eyeball cancer or something, but for now, everyone’s eating it like it’s the food that cures all.
Know what else paleo people love? Kale. Kale all day long. Kale for everyone! This one I can’t figure out, because kale is some nasty-ass shit. I guess maybe people just like it because it’sย good for you or something, but that seems like a suck reason to me. Anyway, you pile a bunch of kale over top of the soup, close the lid, and let it cook for a while.
Everyone who tried this before me told me it was delicious. They swore it was amazing. They insisted I would love it. I was skeptical. It seemed too easy. And it has kale. But people, it was really damn delicious.
A word of caution: habanero peppers are maybe not the brightest idea. My husband is a Southern gentleman and not really used to spicy food. He loved it, but he spent all of dinner sucking air through his lips and making distressed noises and blowing his nose. I shared the leftovers with my brother (procurer of habanero pepper) and we both thought it was really spicy too, even having grown up with some spicy-ass food. So maybe skip the habanero pepper and just use jalapenos and other ones you know you like.
32 Comments
I think that looks absolutely delicious!
And yay for being the first comment!
Looks pretty yummy. Habaneros scare me a bit, seems like the chorizo might be just the right level of spice for me.
But damn it, I can’t do kale. I’ve tried roasting it, frying it, covering it with dressing, cooking it in meaty cheesy goodness….and still can’t stand it. It always just seems like an angrier version of spinach that wants you to be miserable while you’re eating it.
Everything else looks delicious (though the coconut milk is a wild card for me, haven’t ever tried it in lieu of milk).
Cara
http://www.knockoffcrafts.wordpress.com
Too bad. We love Kale but you might try Swiss Chard instead.
Spinach would probably work too.
Have you tried baked kale chips? http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-kale-chips/ Really simple & tasty, but they have to be bone dry before baking. ๐
My mother never made soup when I was growing up. Correction: My mother never made soup that didn’t taste like shit when I was growing up (she made Matzo Ball soup, and a soup my father coined “Dismal Swamp” because it was just a bunch of leftover awful things in soups) so until I was an adult, I had no idea that I love the shit out of soup. Soup that doesn’t taste awful, that is.
I shall be trying this, sans peppers, because peppers make me gag, but sausage and kale both are awesome soup ingredients… also, I am totally using heavy cream instead of coconut cream, because I can’t afford to have eyeball cancer.
Dismal Swamp has GOT to be the best name for a soup (or band) I have EVER heard! Thank you, I am stealing it for my next Crock Pot disaster! Or Garage Band…whichever comes first!
I think I’ll use heavy cream in mine, thanks. ๐ I know the recipe well except it used beef stock instead of chicken stock and coconut milk. Plus, the chorizo is spicy enough without adding a habanero to it. But yeah, YUM. And I have kale growing in my garden for soup purposes (the only time I enjoy eating kale). So guess what I’ll be making once it cools down a bit. ๐
I have a good friend from Portugal and she taught me to make this soup. But it doesn’t have coconut cream or hot peppers. Just the 3 ingredients-Chorizo (Portuguese if far better than Mexican), chicken broth and kale. You can also add a little shaved Parmesean cheese in each bowl. We eat this all the time!!!
P.S. I noticed you replace failing for fucking! Oh well, I still enjoy your post!
Add potatoes and it’s similar to the zuppa toscana soup from olive garden!
I had a recipe that called for coconut milk. I searched the entire grocery store before asking someone. They said that it’s no longer called coconut “milk.” It’s “coconut water” because you can’t milk a coconut. False advertising and all. That struck me as funny for some reason. And yes, kale sucks. I can’t seem to find a way to eat it. Do “Southern gentlemen” not eat spicy foods? I’m from CA but now live in Texas and everything they eat down here is spicy! But maybe Texas isn’t part of the south? I have never quite figured that out.
yeah, southern people eat spicy food too. but a strong habanero has heat no matter who you are.
Try. But here they seem to love seeing who can eat the spiciest foods! It’s painful to watch…
Coconut water and coconut milk are two different things entirely. No false advertising, milk is made from the flesh of the coconut and the water is the water that’s inside when u crack it open.
Now I’m really confused! LOL… thanks. The folks at the store said they were one and the same.
You can find it near the soy/rice/almond milk. Silk makes some that’s pretty tasty.
This is where things get even more confusing…There are 2 different types of coconut milk. There is coconut milk in a carton like soy and almond milk and there is coconut milk in a can. Coconut milk in a can may also be called coconut cream. You will typically find the canned version in the aisle with Asian food products. Canned coconut milk is what is used in cooking, not the stuff in the carton.
coconut water and coconut milk can be the same but coconut milk might be thicker with mashed meat. coconut milk in a can is like coconut cream but thinner. then creme de coconut is like the thickest processed incarnation of coconut near liquid form. then there’s coconut shreds, dehydrated or air dried and some sweetened, some not. people take their coconut damned seriously. i just look at the picture on the box.
puree kale with coconut water (NOT milk) and freeze it into cubes in an ice cube tray. then use the kale cubes to make a delicious smoothie with yogurt and fresh or frozen fruit…you can’t taste the kale but you get all the benefits. plus when you freeze it, it won’t go bad before you can use it all! ๐
Thanks! I’ll try it.
I’m pretty sure people in the paleolithic era did not have have chorizo… even in Mexico!
Did you rinse out the seeds from the pepper? If not, that’s probably why it was uncomfortably spicy.
I detest coconut and all my health nut friends have decided it’s the only to cook with so I am constantly being offered things with shredded coconut or coconut milk or give coconut water to drink. What part of “It tastes like Hawaiian tropic suntan oil” don’t you understand? And yes, as a teen I accidentally sampled some Hawaiian Tropic while putting lotion on my face. So I know whereof I speak.
I’ve bought bunches of kale 2 different times… And ended up with rotting kale in my fridge, 2 different times… I meant well :/
Try a massaged kale salad. It makes kale delicious! And you literally get to massage the kale, which is strangely soothing.
Trying a low gluten and dairy diet, so this is PERFECT. ๐ I keep using paleo recipes because it doesn’t involve 10000000 different $10 flours, and I can get away with using just two $8-10 flours. And yeah, paleo people love coconut EVERYTHING–coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut SUGAR (??), coconut flour… oof. I feel torn between wanting to eat local, and wanting to eat low carb/low sugar and all of the coconut incarnates.
Thank you.
I made this last night, but I used chicken sausage instead of chorizo (food allergies) and it was so good and very filling! Thanks!
Interesting. Mexican chorizo does not look at all like Spanish chorizo (which is the only one I’ve seen, as it’s easily available in the UK and most things authentically Mexican aren’t). Spanish chorizo is much darker and more cured-looking, and makes any oil it’s cooked with a fantastic (and tasty) dark red from all the paprika in it.
[…] a paleo butternut squash soup recipe and I found this one on the same site with the highly approved chorizo kale soup, so I thought I’d give it a […]
Sounds delicious, but I would probably nix the habanero and swap the coconut milk for at least regular milk, if not cream. This recipe is similar to the copycat recipe I’ve tried for Olive Garden’s zuppa toscano (YUM!), which is pretty easy to make, too. And one-pot, which my laziness loves, too.
Your soup actually looks nicer than the original. Shocking.