One of the most popular and hard-to-pronounce items on the Olive Garden menu is found in the soup column. But it's more like a thick chili than a soup, really, with all those beans and veggies and ground beef in there. The reduced-fat grams in this clone are especially important when we consider that this dish makes an excellent meal by itself, and you may want to eat more than the 1 1/2 cups serving size measured for the nutrition stats.

We'll keep the added fat to a minimum by sauteing the veggies in what little fat is not drained off from browning the super lean ground beef. The soup will fill your mouth with so much flavor that it won't matter that we don't add any additional fat. You'll have a hard time distinguishing between this version and the original. Try it out, and you'll see what I mean.

This recipe makes about eight 1 1 /3 cup servings, so if you can't eat it all within a few days, it freezes well.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size--1 1/2 cups
Total servings--8
Calories per serving--312 / Original--416
Fat per serving--4 g / Original 17.5 g