Lasagna Soup

I saw this served in a restaurant in Muscatine, Iowa. It looked soooo good. I combined several recipes I found on the Internet to come up with this.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon good quality olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed through garlic press
• 1 1/4 pounds Italian sausage, out of casing
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• 7 cups chicken broth
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (9 ounce) box oven ready lasagna noodles, broken into 1 - 1 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 (8 ounce) package low fat ricotta cheese
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Brown onion, garlic and sausage in oil until onions are translucent.
2. Add tomato paste; stir in and cook for 1 minute.
3. Add oregano and pepper flakes and stir into mixture and cook for less than 1 minute.
4. Add tomatoes and chicken broth. Stir all together and bring to a boil.
5. Once boiling, add broken up lasagna pieces; stir until it returns to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, put on lid and leave cracked. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to make sure it isn’t sticking.
6. After 30 minutes make sure pasta is done. Turn off heat. Fully cover pan and let sit to blend flavors until ready to serve. If it has cooled too much, turn on heat just to warm up and then stir in mozzarella cheese.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste to ricotta cheese. Spoon soup into bowl and spoon a good size dollop of ricotta cheese on top of each bowl.

Attribution

From the kitchen of Kathryn Irene Jolly.

Photo credit: (c) Can Stock Photo / FomaA