An easy stovetop method and simple ingredients create this flavor-packed Chicken and Sausage Stew with white beans and spinach. A rustic, comforting choice for a cold winter evening.
There are some ingredients that just work so well together. In this Chicken and Sausage Stew, bites of boneless chicken thighs and sausage cook together in a deliciously seasoned broth until fork tender. Creamy cannellini beans and fresh baby spinach add texture, color, and great nutrition.
It all happens in one pot on the stove and the result is pretty darned fabulous.
This recipe was inspired by my Sausage White Bean and Kale Stew, another rustic, delicious meal.
Don’t you just love cold weather food? I’ve been in a soup and stew mood since November and our cool winter temps have kept that mood going strong.
I’ve had such great feedback from so many of you on my Instant Beef Stew and my recipe for Classic Stovetop Beef Stew has become one of the top posts on Valerie’s Kitchen since the onset of fall. Well, I’m right there with you and we’ve been enjoying both of those recipes here as well.
I opened the blinds in our bedroom this morning and was stunned to see a blanket of white covering the ground. We finally had our first Oregon snow! I literally ran for my sweater and boots and with a pretty serious case of bedhead, ran out the door to snap photos. Check out my Instagram story to see what I’m looking at through my windows as I write this post.
The timing could not be better to be sharing this incredibly comforting Chicken and Sausage Stew with you all today. I love this lighter take on stew. The fact that it’s a one pot recipe means less time in the kitchen cleaning up and more time cozying up by the fire.
Table of contents
Ingredient Notes
- Chicken – Boneless, skinless chicken thighs cook up perfectly tender and add more richness than boneless breasts would in this stew.
- Sausage – Any fully-cooked chicken, turkey, beef, or pork sausage will work. I like to use a smoked chicken sausage to lighten things up. For a little heat, try it with andoullie sausage.
- White Beans – Canned cannellini beans are meaty, substantial, and have the best creamy texture.
- Spinach – Fresh baby spinach.
- Veggies – Carrots, celery, sweet yellow onion, and minced garlic.
- Diced tomatoes – A can on of fire-roasted diced tomatoes add a hint of smokiness.
- Dried seasoning – Italian seasoning, paprika, salt, freshly ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes.
- For the rest – Olive oil, tomato paste, all-purpose flour, grated Parmesan cheese.
How to Make Chicken and Sausage Stew
The prep for this recipe includes trimming any excess fat from the edges of boneless, skinless chicken thighs and dicing up some veggies. Easy.
You’ll need a Dutch oven or nice sized soup pot.
The Mirepoix
A mirepoix is the aromatic base of a multitude of soup and stew recipes and the first step in creating this tasty Chicken and Sausage Stew. It sounds fancy but it’s just the simple combination of diced onion, celery, and carrots slowly cooked in either butter or oil until tender. We’re also adding a little garlic to the pot. Cooking this mixture over a low heat coaxes out lots of great flavor.
- Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the carrots, celery, onions and garlic. Cook until onions are tender, about 5 or 6 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and stir until combined well with the veggies.
- Add the flour.
Instead of thickening the stew at the end of the cooking process, flour is added and combined with the veggies before the broth is added.
- Stir the flour into mirepoix until well blended and cook, stirring, for a minute.
- Gradually add broth and cook until mixture is thickened.
- Increase heat to medium and add the uncooked chicken, sausage, beans, tomatoes, and seasoning. Once mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for 40 to 50 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked and fork tender. Stir spinach into the hot stew and remove the pot from the heat.
Make it Low in Fat and Calories
You will save quite a bit of fat and calories by using chicken or turkey sausage in this recipe. The nutrition information on the recipe card below was calculated using chicken sausage and it comes to 420 calories per serving. That’s low enough that I don’t have any issue at all adding a nice sprinkling of Parmesan to mine.
Grated Parmesan adds a nice, salty bite. It’s the perfect way to finish this delicious stew.
Storage Tips
- Refrigerate – Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. The stew will be best if consumed within 3 to 4 days.
- Freeze – Transfer the stew to a freezer-safe zippered plastic storage bag, press out as much air as possible, and freeze flat. Once frozen, bags can be stacked to save space. Thaw safely in the refrigerator overnight before reheating.
- Reheat – Leftovers can be warmed in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat.
More Rustic Chicken Dishes You’ll Love
- Oven Baked BBQ Chicken
- Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
- Julia Child’s Coq au Vin
- Skillet Chicken Parmesan
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Chicken and Sausage Stew
Video
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 carrots, peeled, halved length-wise and sliced (½-inch slices)
- 2 ribs celery,, sliced
- 1 cup diced sweet yellow onion
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 12 ounces smoked sausage, sliced (chicken, turkey, pork, or beef)
- 29 ounces cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (2 14.5 ounce cans)
- 14 ounces fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste (optional)
- 5 ounces roughly chopped baby spinach, big stems removed (about 3 cups, tightly packed)
- grated Parmesan cheese, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Trim the chicken thighs of excess fat and cut into bite-size pieces.
- Heat oil over MEDIUM-LOW heat in a large Dutch oven. Add carrots, celery, onions and garlic. Cook until onions are tender, about 5 or 6 minutes. Add tomato paste and stir until combined well with the veggies. Stir flour into carrot mixture until well blended and cook, stirring, for a minute. Gradually add broth and cook until mixture is thickened.
- Increase heat to MEDIUM and add chicken, sausage, beans, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, paprika, salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper (if using). Once mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to LOW, cover the pot and simmer for 40 to 50 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked and fork tender. Stir spinach into hot stew and remove the pot from the heat. Allow the spinach to wilt from the heat of the stew and serve.
- Serve with grated Parmesan.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated using generic ingredients, and is an estimate not a guarantee. For more accurate results, please refer to the labels on your ingredients at home.
More Cozy Soups and Stews
I’m not too sure if anyone has asked this yet but am I able to crockpot this recipe?? I can’t wait to make it!
The recipe was only tested for the stovetop method.
I am in love with this soup/stew!! It was so full of flavor, the meat to veggie to liquid ratio was perfect!! I don’t like saving partial boxes of broth because I’ll forget them, so I used two boxes of chicken bone broth (I use bone broth religiously), since I added extra broth I used 1.5 teaspoons of all seasonings and 1 tsp of pepper, and two chicken breasts because we don’t eat dark meat chicken. I topped it with fresh parm and red pepper flakes, and oh my gosh it was so good!! Tonight is night 3, and I’m going to really miss this soup!! I can’t wait to make it again!!
I’m so glad you’re loving the soup! One tip on the broth – I hate saving those partial boxes too so I keep jars of Better than Bouillon in my fridge so I can mix up exactly the amount of broth I need for any given recipe. They have low-sodium available in all flavors. Thanks for your comment, Candi 🙂
Thank you for this wonderful recipe! I have been cooking for some foodie friends and this may have been their favorite meal so far. I followed the recipe except I used some homemade turkey broth, Italian sausage instead of smoked, and added bay leaves and then some parsley and cooked turkey and chicken at the end (instead of using the chicken thighs). Wow, it was exceptional and a perfect meal for a snowy March day.
Love what you did with it, Chris 🙂
Hi…I made this for our dinner tonight..it was amazing…I followed the directions to a tee…will definitely make it again…served with crusty bread and a salad
Haven’t made this yet, but I’m not a fan of beans. Can I sub in some potato, or maybe some barley?
Sure!
Delicious! I only had lamb sausage and Tex-Mex diced tomatoes on hand but I liked the kick they gave this stew. My husband asked to have this put on our regular rotation.
I made this soup for our New Year’s Eve dinner. I made half a recipe and it was probably still more than four servings. I had one chicken breast and one red-pepper garlic chicken sausage, used chunky home-made tomato sauce and otherwise I followed the recipe. Served it with black-pepper onion bread from our favorite French Bakery and some cheese and crackers and kalamata olives on the side.
It’s only my husband and I so Can this recipe be frozen? I could see leaving out the beans to freeze?
Beans freeze very well so there is no need to leave them out. The spinach won’t fare as well but I think overall it will be fine.
Okay to I made this today. Delish. Some modifications were: I cooked 1 1/2lbs of sliced Italian sausage and added to the chicken, also I tsp Applewood Smoked Salt. Prep took about an hour. So 2 hours from start to finish.
I made this soup and it was SO delicious, I tweaked it a touch per my family’s taste (less tomatoes, more carrots). Family LOVED it. Ate it with sour dough bread
I have a question…How many cups is 1 serving please? Tgank you!
Hi Valerie, I haven’t made this yet. I just found the recipe today. Just from the ingredients and the photo, I would rate it a 10. It looks and sounds spectacular. My reason for writing now is that I’m constantly looking for recipes that include nutrition information (calories, etc.). So I was very happy to see you had it with this recipe. However, when I saw that you listed 1 gram of fiber per serving, that just didn’t add up for me. Surely there would be more fiber with the carrots, celery, onion, beans, canned tomato, and spinach. I found a nutrition calculator on line. I looked up the fiber content for each item, added them up, and then divided by 8 servings. What I ended up with was 5.4 grams of fiber in each serving. The beans alone provide almost 4 grams per serving. I’m definitely going to make this. I’m on the NOOM diet and we log our meals. Sometimes we have to provide nutrition information.
I love your site and will continue to follow you. I’ll try to write again after I make this wonderful recipe.
Hi Suzanne. We strive to provide the most accurate nutritional information we can but unfortunately we are at the mercy of the program that calculates it for us. I can’t vouch for the accuracy and do recommend that you run your own calculations with trusted tools if any specific nutritional components are important for your particular diet.
Hope you love the stew! 🙂
Hello there chef ,just so happens I crock potted a half a chicken yesterday removed meat and is in fridge returned bones to pot which already had carrot celery garlic onion cooked all night on low ,,so stock is ready have some smoked sausage also ,,love the idea of sauce veggies so one can control texture just need to combine and pick some savoy spinach and sweet turnip greens combine all and enjoy will be a cold night outside but in my coach will be warm and enjoyable wit my stew. thanks timing was great