Ingredients

• 1 Fresh Bunch of Turnip Greens
• 1 Fresh Bunch of Mustard Greens
• 2 Small Onions or One Large Onion
• One Pound of Mild Sausage
• One Pound of Hot Sausage
• 2 Packages of Lipton Vegetable Recipes Soup & Dip Mix
• 2 Cans Black Eyed Peas (Drained)
• 2 Cans Northern Beans (Drained)
• 2 Cans Rotel
• 4 Chicken Bouillon Cubes  + 4 Cups Water
• 1-2 Cups of Water (reserved from greens)
• Garnish: Hot Sauce and Green Onions

Directions

First, you will want to add your turnip greens and mustard greens to a large pan and add water. We use a dutch oven. Fill with about ¼ pan of water and cover with lid. Let them simmer until they have shrunk and are soft.

Once the greens are done, drain the liquid and save for later.

You should have about 3-4 cups of greens for your soup. Once you have the greens in a separate bowl, take a small chop of chop them so that you do not have large hunks for your soup.

While your greens are cooking you will need to brown your sausage. Add your sausage to a skillet and cook with onion until the sausage is brown and the onion is tender. Drain.

In a large pan (I use the same pan I cooked the greens in) add 4 chicken bouillon cubes, 4 cups of water, 2 cans of drained black eyed peas, 2 cans of drained great northern beans, 2 cans of Rotel (do not drain this), and 2 packages of Lipton Vegetable Recipe Soup and Dip Mix.

Add in the drained sausage and stir. Next, add in the greens one spoonful at a time and stir. You can add as many or as little greens as you like. I have found that approximately 4 cups is a good amount. Four cups seems to be not too much and not too little. But, I would not add any more than 4 cups as I think that would be too much.

Once you have everything in the pan add one cup of the reserved water from the greens. If you did not save this it is okay. I just like the extra flavor that it adds. Stir again. If you want your soup a little more soupy,  add an extra ½ cup to 1 cup of water. Do not add too much extra water because you do not want to take away from the seasoning.

Once all the ingredients are added, let the soup simmer on low for about an hour. It can simmer longer, this is just the amount of time that we let it cook.

You can half this recipe if you like. This makes a large pot of soup that we can eat for supper and have leftovers for a couple of days after.

How To Serve

We like to serve the soup with cornbread and crackers. Some prefer cornbread and others prefer crackers. It is wonderful with either.

Once you add your soup to a bowl, we top it with a small amount of Louisiana Hot Sauce. It also looks good garnished with green onion slices.

Turnip Green Soup..Really?

Many of you are probably thinking “yuck,” turnip green soup. We thought the same thing at first. As a matter of fact my father in law made this soup several times and I would not eat it. I do not consider myself to be a picky eater but it just looked gross.

I am from the south and I do not like “greens.” My mother use to cook them when I was growing up and I never once ate them. Not liking turnip greens or mustard greens was one of the reasons I would never try this soup.

The Soup is Delicious

One day, we were invited to our in-laws house to eat this soup. Remember, every time before I turned it down. I would just get something different to eat. On this particular day, I decided to try the soup. Much to my surprise it was delicious. Yet, there were things about it that I did not like. I did not like the hunks of polish sausage for one. I do not like hunks of meat in my soups. I just don’t.

A couple of weeks later I decided to try out my own turnip green soup. I went to the internet for recipes. I came across several. I liked different things about different recipes. Like my in-laws recipe, many called for polish type sausage along with regular sausage.

From here, I decided to use only regular sausage. I used one mild sausage and one hot sausage. If you do not like spicy, you can use 2lbs of mild instead of one pound of each. Most recipes just called for turnip greens. I decided to mix turnip and mustards. Again, this is optional. If you prefer one over the other you can just stick to the one you prefer.

Also, many recipes called for frozen or canned greens. Out our house we like to use fresh ingredients. So, we always use fresh. It just tastes better.

We hope you enjoy the soup as much as our family enjoys it. It has become one of those soups that we cook often. It’s a soup you can eat on for days! It is just as good heated up the next day. I figure it freezes well. But, I have never tried it.

Enjoy!!