Lasagna soup

It's new recipe night at our house!  I scoured my Pinterest "Dinners" board to find a recipe that Aaron would eat and finally settled on this one:  Lasagna soup!  It's an adaptation of a Paula Deen recipe, and who could possible turn down anything by Paula Deen?

I was a bit skeptical about adapting this recipe because I worried that the excessive amount of tomato sauce would change the texture of it.  I was expecting it to be a bit pasty, but the chicken broth really balances it out and makes it the perfect texture.

I love lasagna, but I don't care for ricotta cheese.  I make my lasagna with cottage cheese.  The only problem with the cottage cheese is that it melts kinda funny when you reheat it.  Also, as easy as lasagna is to make once you get the hang of it, it's still pretty time consuming.  Even when I'm working quite efficiently I still can't get a lasagna on the table in under two hours.  Heck, it has to cook for almost an hour.

With soup, it's simple.  There's no cooking the noodles and the meat in separate pans and mixing the cheese in a separate dish and then layering everything together in another dish.  It's all done in one pot!  And speaking of layering, it takes me forever because I'm such a perfectionist.  When you put it in a pot, there's no layering required.

This took me around 45 minutes from start to table.  It easily fed the two of us and Bailey and could probably comfortably feed a family of four.  I have quite a bit leftover, and since there's no cottage cheese or ricotta I feel comfortable reheating it tomorrow for lunch.

This, like most of my recipes, is an adapted version.  You can find the original here, but it was quite good the way I made it as well.

Lasagna soup

1 lb ground beef (or turkey or chicken if you prefer)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

3 15 oz cans tomato sauce

1 32 oz carton chicken broth

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups broken lasagna noodles

5 oz grated Parmesan cheese

2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

In a large soup pot brown the meat on medium heat until no longer pink.  Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds.  Add the brown sugar, Italian seasoning, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and salt.  Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes.  Add the lasagna noodles and simmer until the pasta is tender.  Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese.  Serve the soup into oven-safe bowls.  Turn the broiler on high.  Sprinkle the mozzarella over each bowl.  Put the bowls under the broiler for 3-4 minutes until the cheese begins to brown and bubble.  Serve with garlic toast.