And now for the details…

Let’s set the scene: it’s the middle of winter. The temperature is cold and icy outside and just looking out the window causes a deep chill to set in, right to your bones. All you want is something warm and comforting to heat you up from the inside, something that feels like a hug in a bowl. This is exactly what our weather is like right now, and when I was looking in the fridge to see what was available, I came up with this recipe as a solution.

Kubasa, also known as kielbasa or kolbassa, is a sausage of Eastern Europe descent, often known as Ukrainian or Polish sausage. It’s a pretty broad term when you think about it… it seems pretty doubtful that an entire country (countries) has just one type of sausage, no? And that’s entirely true. The term “kielbassa” is a translation of “sausage” and in those countries, it refers to a wide range of different sausages. But, where I am from, the Canadian Prairies (think smack in the middle of Canada), the term kubasa/kolbassa is used for a smoked sausage, heavy on the garlic, that is most often served up alongside perogies (dumplings) and holuptsi (cabbage rolls).

In this recipe, I used the kubasa in a soup with beans and some veg to get a hearty, rich, salty, and slightly smoky soup that might actually be nearing “stew” in texture! The beans add a thick silkiness to the broth as they cook, and the addition of paprika gives a hint of heat without actually adding any spiciness. All in all, it’s the perfect meal to come home to after a cold day of skiing, skating or building a snowman 🙂

Let’s get to cooking, shall we?

There are two sets of instructions in the recipe, one for the Instant Pot and one for stovetop. They are both extremely similar, the biggest different is the amount of time to cook the soup for after adding all the ingredients in. I will go through both options, so follow along with your cooking approach!

We start with the veg. Peel and chop your onions and garlic and place in your pot with the oil. At this point, you can prep and chop your celery and carrots, and chop the kubasa into large chunks, to get everything ready to go.

A quick note on prepping the kubasa: most kubasa that I have had has edible, soft casings. But there are some that have a stiff, dry casing that needs to be peeled off before eating. You can usually tell if you try and peel a bit of the casing off. If it “flakes” off in small pieces that tear easily, it’s probably good to eat. If it easily comes off in large strips that peel off easily, peel the whole thing off to avoid unchewable pieces of casing.

With your onion, garlic, and oil in your pot, set to “sauté” setting (or medium-high heat on the stove) stirring and cooking until the onions have turned translucent. Then, add the carrots and celery, stirring and cooking for another 3-5 minutes, so that the celery and carrots soften slightly.

Next, we add all the rest of the ingredients to the pot, stirring well. In this recipe, we are using canned beans, but there is an opportunity to use dried beans if you would like. If you do use dried beans, you will need to add time (about twice the time listed here) as well as add a cup or two of water. If you are using canned beans, don’t forget to fully drain and then rinse the beans before adding them to the pot.

Next, we will be going one of two directions depending on whether you are using and Instant Pot or stovetop: If you’re using an Instant Pot, cover and seal it, and set it to “Soup” for 20 minutes. If you are going with the stovetop method, lower the heat of your stovetop to medium-low to medium heat, just enough so there is a little simmering action going on (a few bubbles every few seconds), but not a big, bubbling boil. Cover the pot and cook it for 45-50 minutes, opening it up every 5-10 minutes to stir and prevent anything from burning/sticking to the bottom of the pot.

And that’s it folks. It is that easy. Last step is to remove it from the heat and discard the bay leaves before eating. I like to have this soup with either some crunchy seed crackers, or a nice, fresh piece of crusty bread!

Happy eating.