Italian Sausage Lasagna Soup

When I was on the phone with my sister last week, she mentioned she was having Lasagna Soup for dinner. She asked me if I had ever tried it before. Are you kiddin' me?! Of course I've had it before, you beast! We've tried it a couple times at our home. The first two rounds, however, didn't really have the look and feel of lasagna as promised by the recipes- just like plain 'ol tomato soup with meat.

This is when I turned to the queen-of-recipes-that-always-taste-good-and-never-fail:

The One and Only,

Paula Deen. 

Whenever I try one of her recipes, they always turns out really delicious. Yes, I know, they always taste good because they're usually loaded with the so called "bad things to eat." This recipe, however, is loaded with wonderful ingredients, and has absolutely no heavy cream (I highly suspected a hidden glug somewhere in the directions). 

Albeit almost perfect, I made a couple modifications to her recipe. I wanted to use noodles with that signature rippled-lasagna flair, but I didn't want to use the actual chunky lasagna noodles again. Also, using regular small pasta would just make it look like regular tomatoish soup. That's when the beautiful translucent and slightly blinking light at the supermarket shown down directly on my dear friend: Campanelle. It was direct food revelation, I tell you.

Whenever I make lasagna, I use Italian sausage. So instead of following Paula's plan on the meat, I used half ground beef, half Italian sausage. It gave the soup a better zing, added spicy undertones to the decadent broth, without loosing that beefy flavor. 

Oh, and apparently it's Halloween today - so um, go team.

 

Italian Sausage Lasagna Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Italian sausage

1/2 lb ground beef  

1 onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 t thyme

1 T firmly packed brown sugar

1 32oz box chicken broth

2 14.5oz cans Italian petite diced tomatoes

1 15oz can tomato sauce

2 t Italian seasoning

1/2 t salt

2 C campanelle noodles

grated Parmesan and Mozzarella for sprinkling

Directions:

1. In a separate large skillet, cook Italian sausage and ground beef until browned. Drain as much as possible (or you'll end up with floating grease in your soup - this is why I always do a separate pan, and drain the heck outta the meat before adding it into the soup pot). Remove from skillet and spoon meat onto plate lined with a paper towel.

2. In a large soup pot, saute onion, green bell pepper, and garlic until onions are translucent. Add in meat. Add thyme, brown sugar, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, and salt.

3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for 20 minutes. Add noodles, and simmer until noodles are cooked through. Sprinkle with Parmesan and Mozzarella. Serve with freshly sliced french bread if desired. 

Recipe adapted from: Paula Deen