Hamdi Saidani Pioneer Woman Lasagna Soup is a one-pot Italian soup with browned sweet sausage, hand-crushed plum tomatoes, broken lasagna noodles, and baby spinach, topped with ricotta and Parmesan dumplings. It takes about 45 minutes start to finish.
Ree posted this on her official website as a way to turn classic lasagna into a weeknight soup without the endless layering or extra dishes. She describes the ricotta dumplings as the Italian version of sour cream on a bowl of chili, a cool, creamy garnish that melts into each spoonful.
Crush the whole canned tomatoes by hand instead of buying pre-crushed. A can of whole plum tomatoes has the right ratio of fruit to juice for this soup, while canned crushed tomatoes run too thick and diced tomatoes add too much thin liquid, throwing off the broth consistency.
Pioneer Woman Lasagna Soup Recipe
Description
All the layers of a classic lasagna broken down into a simmering pot of sausage, tomatoes, and wide noodles. Spoonfuls of basil-flecked ricotta dropped on top melt slowly into each bowl like the cheesy filling you pull apart in a real lasagna.
Ingredients
Soup
Ricotta Dumplings
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat, crumble in the sausage, and cook until lightly browned, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, about 3 minutes.
- Add the garlic and onion and cook until softened, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Pour in the white wine, bring to a simmer, and cook until reduced and syrupy, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add the hand-crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, and 3 cups (720ml) water. Stir in the oregano, salt, and red pepper flakes and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
- Cook until the broth is slightly thickened, about 7 minutes.
- Drop in the broken lasagna noodles and cook until just al dente, 6 to 7 minutes.
- Stir in the spinach and basil and cook until the spinach wilts, about 3 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed.
- Mix the ricotta, Parmesan, basil, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper together in a small bowl.
- Ladle the soup into bowls, drop about 2 tablespoons of the ricotta mixture on top of each serving, and finish with extra grated Parmesan. Serve with Italian bread.
FAQs
Why use regular lasagna noodles instead of no-boil sheets?
No-boil noodles are designed to absorb moisture inside a covered baking dish, so they behave differently in a soup pot. They soak up too much broth and turn mushy fast, leaving you with thick, starchy liquid instead of actual soup.
Regular lasagna noodles hold their shape better and soften gradually as the soup simmers. Break them into 1 to 2 inch pieces before dropping them in so they fit on a spoon and cook evenly in 6 to 7 minutes.
Why deglaze with white wine instead of just adding more broth?
The wine hits the hot pan after the sausage and onion have browned, dissolving all the caramelized bits stuck to the bottom. That fond carries concentrated flavor that plain broth cannot replicate, giving the soup a slightly sweet, acidic backbone.
Cook the wine down until it turns syrupy before adding the tomatoes and broth. If you skip the reduction, the alcohol taste lingers and the soup tastes sharp. No wine on hand? A splash of white wine vinegar stirred in at the end adds a similar brightness.
Why dollop the ricotta on top instead of stirring it into the soup?
Dropping spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture on the surface lets each person swirl it in at their own pace. Stirring it directly into the hot pot would thin the cheese out instantly and turn the broth cloudy and grainy.
Kept as a dollop, the ricotta slowly melts into the edges of each spoonful the way cheese pulls apart in a baked lasagna. That contrast between the warm broth and cool, creamy ricotta is what makes this soup feel like the real dish.
Can you make this soup ahead without the noodles getting bloated?
Cook the soup through step 5, before the noodles go in, and refrigerate the base for up to two days. When you are ready to serve, reheat the base, drop in the broken noodles, and finish with spinach and basil.
Noodles left sitting in broth overnight absorb all the liquid and turn soft and swollen. Keeping them separate until reheating means every bowl has noodles with actual bite instead of a thick, starchy porridge.
What can you use instead of sweet Italian sausage?
Hot Italian sausage works if you want more heat, though you should skip the red pepper flakes since the sausage already brings spice. Ground turkey sausage is a lighter option that still carries the fennel and herb flavor the soup needs.
Plain ground pork will not taste the same because it lacks the seasoning blend built into Italian sausage. If you only have plain pork, add a teaspoon of fennel seeds and half a teaspoon of dried oregano to the meat while browning to get closer to the right flavor.
