This recipe for gluten free vegetarian tortellini soup with spinach recipe is creamy, delicious, and super quick. It is the perfect dinner to warm you up and the ideal comfort food.

Creamy Vegetarian Tortellini Soup in pot

We are officially in soup season! it is one of my favorite seasons as soup is so hearty, easy, and delicious. I often admire longingly the soups others make that have pastas in them that are sadly not gluten free and dreamed of the day I could one day have tortellini again. My friend Amanda at Midwest Nice makes this beautiful looking tortellini soup. As she is married to a meat eater and I am not, I was inspired by her recipe to come up with a creamy vegetarian tortellini soup with spinach! It is packed full of vegetables so it is healthful. Let’s get to it.

What substitutions can you use in this vegetarian tortellini soup?

If you want to swap the spinach for kale you 100% can, you can even omit it completely if greens in a soup are not your thing!

If you’d like to make the soup more healthful, you can sub out the cream with half and half. I have even gone as far as to make it with whole milk. While it is still absolutely delicious, you won’t have the same level of creaminess that you would get from cream. Can you have a gluten free tortellini soup with sausage if there is no meat in it?

Can you have a gluten free tortellini soup with sausage without meat?

Yes! Thanks to companies like Beyond Meat and their developing of faux meat products in the past few years you can. I find for this recipe that the best sausage to use is the hot Italian. If you wish to use another company, that should work just as well. However, make sure it is a hot Italian “sausage” that you plan to use.

Is there gluten free tortellini?

Yes! I am so thrilled to say that there is actually now quality gluten free tortellini. I am fortunate that I live near a Wegmans and use their brand. However here are a couple of others.

Gluten Free Four Cheese Tortellini
DePuma Three Cheese Tortellini

Troubleshooting: What does “deglaze the pan” mean?

To deglaze a pan is when you have cooked something that will stick to the bottom of the pot or pan (often a meat or fish), you put a liquid in the base of the pan or pot to help break up what is there but retain the delicious flavors of what was previously cooked in the pot. You would often either use stock or a wine.

What do you need for this vegetarian tortellini soup with spinach?

1 cup cream
1 onion (medium sized)
4 cups vegetable stock
3-4 carrots
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
18 oz tortellini (gluten free of course, regular if you’d like!)
1 teaspoon garlic minced
1 package of Beyond Meat Hot Italian Sausage
1-2 cups spinach (optional if you don’t want a leafy green. Kale would also be a great substitute!)
Parmesan to top (optional)

How to make vegetarian tortellini soup with spinach?

Make sure the sausage is room temperature. Remove the casing. In a pot, place the sausage and cook for 10 minutes on a medium high heat. It will break down (with the help of you)
Remove the sausage from the pot and place on the side. Deglaze the bottom of the pot by adding some stock. Add the chopped carrots and onions to the pot. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a minute longer. Add the vegetable stock and diced tomatoes to the pot and bring to a boil.
Allow the soup to come together for 20 minutes or so, you want the onion and carrot to be soft and not raw. If your carrots seem done enough, add the sausage back to the pot, along with the tortellini. Cook the tortellini according to the package. Add the spinach to the pot once the tortellini is cooked and cook down for a few minutes. Season your soup, and taste along the way with salt and pepper.
Remove the soup from the heat and add the cream. Serve immediately and top with parmesan.

Ingredients for vegetarian tortellini soup

Sautée the vegetarian sausage in the bottom of a pot. Cook according to the package instructions. Once cooked, deglaze the pan with stock. Add the carrots and onions and cook for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the stock and tomatoes and allow the soup to come to a boil. Check on the doneness of the carrots and onions. When you feel they are fully cooked through, add the sausage and tortellini back into the pot.

Add the spinach and cook down for a few minutes. Remove from the heat and add the cream.

Serve immediately and cover with parmesan cheese should you desire.

How can you store this vegetarian tortellini soup?

It will keep in the fridge for a couple of days. Depending on the quality of the gluten free tortellini pasta you find, it may break down faster. My suggestion is to eat the soup within 48 hours if you want the tortellini to still have some stability. If you would like to freeze the soup, you should follow the recipe up until the point of adding the tortellini and cream. Add the sausage back into the soup and then remove from the stove and store it in a freezer friendly container. When you wish to make it, reheat the soup, add the tortellini, spinach, and cream!

Why should you make this creamy tortellini soup?

It is packed with so much flavor that you honestly would not know that it is vegetarian. The heat that you get from the Italian sausage adds the best seasoning to the soup. It is such a hearty soup because of all of the ingredients that it will not leave you wanting. Plus, you can basically make a classic Italian sausage tortellini soup but you can serve it to all of your vegetarian and gluten free friends. To quote Michael Scott, “win, win, win”.

Looking for something similar?

Fish Soup
Butternut Squash Bisque
Beer Steamed Mussels
Spinach Soup
Kronk’s Spinach Puffs
Ratatouille

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Vegetarian Tortellini Soup with Spinach