Lasagna Soup

I love soup. I could eat it for every meal every day and never get tired of it. Strangely, my family does not agree. So, sometimes I have to appease the masses and serve them the cheesy carbs their little hearts desire. But I do it in soup form, because I still like to feel like I'm in charge. This is a fast, easy meal that my family loves. I serve it often, because it requires minimal ingredients, comes together super quickly, and my kids haven't turned their nose up at it even one time, yet.

I make it in the Instant Pot, but you could cook it on the stovetop with a tiny bit more time/effort.

That's it for the babble. Recipe, now.

1 onion, diced 3-5 cloves of garlic, minced Red pepper flakes 1 lb ground meat (I used turkey) Salt and pepper to taste

6 cups chicken/vegetable stock 1 jar of pasta sauce* 1 big can diced tomatoes 2 tsp balsamic vinegar 1 tbsp dried basil 1 tsp oregano 1 tsp parsley 1 tsp sugar 10-15 lasagna noodles, broken Your fave lasagna cheeses

1. On sauté mode, cook onions and meat. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and pepper flakes.

2. Add everything else. (Except the cheese)

3. Manual, high pressure for 4 min. QPR.

4. Serve and top each bowl with your cheese of choice. We do marble and parmesan because that's what's in our fridge.

If you're making this on the stovetop, when you get to step 4, bring it all to a boil and then reduce to simmer until the noodles are cooked to your liking.

I have shared this recipe elsewhere, and have read that some people add zucchini or carrots to it. You could also pretty easily mix shredded spinach or even kale into this one. And, if you're off cheese (or meat) you can make this recipe without either and it's still really tasty.

The steam from the instant pot kept fogging up my camera, but it really looks delicious, trust me.

*For jarred pasta sauce (sorry, Nonna) I like to use Classico or President's Choice. You can often find them on sale for under $2/jar. The Prego and Ragu brands are consistently cheaper, but I don't like the taste of them. You might as well fill the pot with ketchup, imo. This is worth the extra dollar, I think. If you don't do jarred sauce, you can absolutely use your own homemade pasta sauce for this soup, too.

The recipe above makes enough to feed our family of 5 for supper, usually with enough left over for my husband to take it to work for lunch the next day.

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If you've been on the fence about the Instant Pot, I really encourage you to take the plunge. I love mine so much, and use it at least 3 times a week to cook supper, if not more. I got mine shortly after my third was born, and it has made such a huge difference for me in terms of meal prep and planning. Did you know you can take your frozen meat out of the freezer and put it right into the pot without thawing it? This was a life changing development for me. Now, at 4:30 when I'm staring at a bunch of frozen chicken I neglected to thaw, I'm not like, "well, McDonald's it is", I'm like "whoop, drumsticks and quinoa and salad!" and don't feel like a domestic failure. It's magic.

Just the best little kitchen tool in the whole wide world. Only it's not little. Still the best, though.

Do you have an instant pot? What's your go to family pleasing meal?