This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup combines cheese tortellini, sweet Italian sausage, spinach and other vegetables in a creamy broth.
All year round, we keep our slow cooker close by and ready to cook delicious meals like this Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup.
A slow cooker is great for summertime cooking, because you don’t have to turn on the oven and heat up the kitchen! Plus, you can cook up a big batch of this creamy tortellini soup – then enjoy leftovers for a few days afterwards.
How do you make Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup?
Start by cooking up some sweet Italian sausage in a skillet, breaking it up into bite-sized pieces as it browns. Place the cooked sausage in your slow cooker, but leave the rendered fat in the skillet.
Next, sauté diced onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in the sausage fat – cooking until lightly browned and almost tender. Deglaze the pan with some chicken stock, then pour everything into the slow cooker with the sausage. (By the way – if you happen to have a multi-cooker slow cooker like this, you can do these first two steps right in the cooker!)
Pour in more chicken stock, cream, cream cheese, canned diced tomatoes, dry cheese tortellini, baby spinach, and seasonings including salt and pepper, dried basil and oregano.
Then – let the slow cooker do the work, cooking your Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup until the tortellini is tender (this will take three to four hours on low).
Spoon into bowls for serving. Serve with some crusty Garlic Bread on the side.
Recipe Substitutions
This Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup is versatile and can be adapted to suit your tastes and the ingredients you have on hand.
While we used sweet Italian sausage, you could swap in hot Italian sausage for a zestier flavor. Or swap in your favorite chicken sausage if you prefer. (We don’t recommend a sweeter breakfast sausage – stick with savory flavors.)
You can use vegetable stock in place of chicken stock.
You can swap in other greens for the spinach – just note that spinach cooks quickly, while other greens such as kale, Swiss chard, or collards require more time to cook. We’d suggest sautéing them with the onions, carrots, celery and garlic to cook them a bit before adding them to the slow cooker.
How do I reheat this Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup?
Because the soup has cream in the broth, a gentle reheat is recommended so the cream doesn’t break.
You can reheat the portion that you plan to eat in the microwave, or in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently.
You may enjoy these other Slow Cooker recipes:
- Slow Cooker Mac & Cheese
- Slow Cooker Apple Crisp
- Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Chicken Stew
- Slow Cooker Italian Beef Subs
- Slow Cooker Honey-Garlic Baby Back Ribs
We love seeing what you made! Tag us on Instagram at @afamilyfeast or hashtag #afamilyfeast so we can see your creations!
Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini and Sausage Soup
Ingredients
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage, removed from casing
2 cups sweet onion, half inch dice
1 1/2 cups carrots, half inch dice
1/2 cup celery, quarter inch dice
1 tablespoon fresh garlic, minced
1 1/2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock or broth
3 cups heavy cream
4 ounces cream cheese
1 14.5–ounce can diced tomatoes
3/4 pound dry cheese tortellini
4 ounces baby spinach
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
Instructions
In a large sauté pan over medium high heat, add olive oil and once hot, add the sausage and break up into bite sized pieces as it browns.
After the sausage browns, about five minutes, remove the sausage to the slow cooker but leave the fat in the pan.
Keep the pan on medium high and add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Cook until slightly browned and almost tender, about 5-8 minutes.
Add a splash of the stock to deglaze the pan then add the pan contents to the slow cooker along with all other ingredients.
Cook 3-4 hours on low until the tortellini is tender.
Serve immediately.
Last Step! Please leave a review and rating letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business thrive & continue providing free recipes.
Veronika says
Do you think using ground beef would be gross? I don’t like sausage 😭
Martha says
Hi Veronika – you can make that swap but you’ll need to add some herbs and seasonings. In the original recipe, much of the flavor of the finished dish came from the sausage, but ground beef won’t add much by itself. Hope that helps!
Jennifer A Newman says
First of all this looks amazing and I can’t wait to try it. Two questions though, I hate cooked spinach and chance you think it would be okay to substitute kale instead, and second, and you use meat tortellini instead of cheese tortellini?
Martha says
Sure Jennifer – The kale takes much longer to cook than spinach so just add that to the soup sooner in the cooking process. Meat tortellini is fine too.
Annette glodowski says
I won second place in a soup contest with this recipe!!! it was awesome.
Martha says
Congrats Annette!
Patricia A Cahill says
Hello Martha, Made this soup today for lunch. It’s cold here in Pennsylvania and this hit the spot. My darling husband is quite finicky and he loved it, two bowls. The only thing, for us, is not using 3 cups of cream, I would tone it down to 1 1/2 cups but that’s us. This soup had excellent flavoring. Always love a “one-pot” meal.
Thank you for this recipe, it’ll be made again.
Martha says
You’re welcome Patricia – you should always feel free to adapt to suit your tastes. Glad you both enjoyed the soup!
Mady says
Everyone enjoyed this soup! I only did two cups of heavy cream and still felt like it was too creamy so next time I’ll probably try just 1 cup of cream and wait to put the spinach in until a couple minutes before serving so it’s not too wilted. I think this soup would also be great without the meat!
Martha says
Glad you enjoyed the recipe Mady!
Sobxgal says
This was very good. I took it to a work Soup-er Bowl party and everyone loved it.
Martha says
Thank you!
Kerry says
This soup was so delicious!!!! I am not a slow cooker person so I made it in my Dutch oven on the stove. Instead of dry tortellini, I used fresh. I used fresh plum tomatoes too because I just have not been able to find a canned diced tomato that isn’t saucy. Instead of using all chicken stock/broth I saved some of the salty, starchy pasta water and added that to the pot when I finished cooking the tortellini. Also, I nixed the cream cheese because I did not have any on hand. At the end I added some ground oregano and dried basil for some additional flavor. The soup was this perfect creamy, buttery goodness with so many wonderful flavors. Definitely will be making it again!
Martha says
Thanks Kerry!
Bella says
Delicious
Martha says
Thanks Bella!
Marlene says
I could only find refrigerated cheese tortellini so will that work? Also can this soup be frozen?
Martha says
Hi Marlene – Yes, but the refrigerated tortellini will take much less time to get tender than the dried tortellini so the cooking time will be much less. (We’ve never made this with the fresh tortellini so would be guessing on the cooking time.) Regarding freezing, we tend to shy away from freezing recipes with cream in them – it tends to break/separate once it is frozen and thawed. I think the tortellini will also soften after thawing as well.
YellowTulips says
First, I won’t rate this very appealing recipe because I haven’t prepared it yet. I do plan on making it ( as written ) but I have a question — I have read that many folks do not have good luck using milk or cream in slow cooker recipes because it can curdle ( even set on Low ). I’ve read that in recipes, too. The general consensus is not to use slow cookers for creamy sauces or soups OR the advice is that substituting evaporated milk will solve the issue. I’m not a fan of evaporated milk except in pumpkin pie. I’d love to hear other people’s experience and, especially, the opinion of the experienced Pesa team! Oh, does the cream cheese hold up well in the cooker? Thank you.
Martha says
Hi YellowTulips – Milk or cream in any recipe will break (or “curdle”) when it gets too hot. In this case, it shouldn’t break as long as you follow the instructions and don’t overheat the soup. The cream cheese will melt and add creaminess to the broth. Again – as long as you follow the directions, it should be fine.