Post by @oliveyousomatcha

Lower sodium Olive Garden Soup 🤤❤️🙌 Zuppa Toscana copy cat recipe my partner and I are Caregiver’s for her 85-year-old mom. She requires soft and lower sodium food. Which makes takeout and eating out not great options. Of course, we splurge and get Restaurant food on occasion. But mostly we cook at home to make sure it works for our aging parent. Somebody asked how to make a lower sodium version of Olive Garden’s soup. So I thought I would take on the challenge and show you the method that I use when I’m looking for Restaurant meals, that I need to alter and make it at home. As I say in the video, you don’t need to start completely from scratch if you’re trying to re-create a popular Restaurant dish at home. Luckily there are very amazing food creators out there, and they’ve already done a lot of the work for you. So I recommend just checking out a well reviewed recipe, and then making the changes you need to from there. Today I used a recipe from a blog crème de la crumb as a starting point. We made a lot of alterations, of course. But at least I had a place to begin. the recipe I ended up making is below Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup 1/4 cup hemp (soaked in hot water) 1/4 cup cashews, raw (soaked in hot water) 1 lb soft & lower sodium Italian Sausage substitute (see recipe in other video) 2 tbsp olive oil 1 sweet onion 1 celery, diced small 1 carrot, diced small 4 cloves of garlic 6 cups low sodium broth (can do part bone broth for more protein) 2 cups water 4-5 yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces 1/4 tsp sea salt 1/8 tsp white pepper 1/4 cup nutritional yeast 4 cups kales (saute on side for family, blended for Lola) parm cheese, salt and pepper to taste DIRECTIONS Soak Cashews and hemp seeds in hot water for at least 20 minutes. Set aside Heat a pot over medium heat. Add olive oil and onions, carrot, and celery. Saute for 7 minutes, or until onions are translucent Add garlic and saute for 1 minute Add chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Scrape off all of the bits on the bottom Add water, potatoes, salt, and white pepper. Bring to a boil and down to a simmer for until potatoes are tender. Place 1 cup of potatoes and broth in a blender with cashews and hemp seeds, and nutritional yeast. Blend until smooth. Return to pot Add in sausage. If kale is easy enough to chew, add it to the soup. If not, you can blend it with broth to include it Top with parm, more salt, and/or salt substitute if desired if you are a caregiver for an aging parent or grandparent, I highly recommend giving this one a try. It’s delicious in the whole family loved it. #c#caregivera#agingparentsl#lowsodiumo#olivegarden