Vegan Lasagna Soup
One of my favorite meals to make is vegan lasagna soup. It is the perfect opportunity to incorporate lots of vegetables in a comforting and delicious way.
If you ask anyone in my family, I am a pasta girl through and through. As someone who lives in Canada and has to deal with cold winters, I also love the warmth and comfort associated with a big batch of soup.
This vegan lasagna soup is the perfect combination of both. Plus, unlike actual lasagna, it is faster and easier to make.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Lasagna takes a lot of effort (and a lot of dishes). This vegan lasagna soup is a great way to enjoy all the same flavors in a simpler form. It takes less time to make, too!
- Minimal prep. Instead of slicing and dicing a ton of different ingredients, this recipe is much simpler. Simply pulse the veggies in a food processor before cooking them down.
- This vegan lasagna soup is very easy to customize. It’s a great recipe to have on hand when you need to raid your kitchen and use up old produce.
- Let me tell you about the vegan tofu ricotta. Something so easy to make has no business tasting this good. And yet it does! It’s a great recipe in its own right, perfect for sandwiches, wraps, and salads.
- If you’re not a fan of spending hours in your kitchen, this vegan lasagna soup is the perfect option for batch cooking. Enjoy it throughout the week or freeze in separate servings.
History of Lasagna Soup
Lasagna soup is a deconstructed version of traditional lasagna, served in a soup form. It combines the flavors and ingredients typically found in lasagna, such as pasta, tomatoes, ground meat (or in our case, a delicious vegetable and mushroom mixture), ricotta cheese, and various Italian herbs and seasonings.
While lasagna soup draws inspiration from traditional Italian lasagna, it is not a classic Italian dish. It can be considered more of a modern, Americanized adaptation of the Italian favorite. Instead of being layered, the ingredients are simmered together in a broth to create a hearty and flavorful soup.
How to Make This Recipe
To avoid spending lots of time chopping and dicing and mincing the ingredients, we will be using a food processor. Start by adding garlic, red onion, bell pepper, carrot and mushrooms into the processor.
Pulse a few times to chop and combine the ingredients until they have a similar texture to ground “beef”. If your food processor is quite small, you may need to do it in batches.
Next, heat the large pot over medium heat. You can use olive oil or a splash or vegetable broth for sauteing. Add your veggies and cook them for 3-5 minutes until they soften a little.
Add tomato paste, soy sauce, dried herbs, and nutritional yeast. Stor it in with the vegetable mixture and cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes).
Finally, add the “liquid” ingredients: vegetable broth, pasta sauce, and diced tomatoes. Bring the contents of the pot to a boil and add the broken lasagna sheets. Stir in your preferred vegan cream and reduce the heat.
Simmer your vegan lasagna soup for about 10 minutes until the pasta is cooked.
You can use this time to quickly make tofu ricotta. This step is optional but trust me when I say that this makes an amazing topping and takes this soup to a whole new level.
Throw in the entire list of ingredients into a food processor and blitz them all together until smooth.
Once the soup is ready, top it with vegan ricotta and enjoy!
Hack It!
- The vegan cream can simply be coconut milk. Alternatively, you can make some cashew or sunflower seed cream to add to your soup.
- Gluten-free? Use GF lasagna sheets or try this amazing red lentil lasagna soup recipe.
- Ricotta adds a protein component to this dish. However, if you want to up the protein content in your vegan lasagna soup, you could add some beans, seitan, or soy mince.
- It is very easy to upscale or downscale this recipe. That said, this vegan lasagna soup is so delicious, you might regret downscaling! Leftovers store in the fridge for a few days. Alternatively, you can split the soup into portions and freeze.
- For a soy-free option, you can forego the homemade ricotta topping and serve this vegan lasagna soup with fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, or crispy onions instead.
Kitchenware and Equipment
I cannot overstate how much time and effort a food processor saves you. Not just for this vegan lasagna soup recipe, but overall.
A good processor opens doors for so many amazing dishes, including delicious dips, sauces, and desserts. Personally, I swear by Ninja kitchen appliances, including their food processor.
As for the rest of the kitchenware, you will need a good non-stick soup pot, a spatula, and a can opener (if your canned tomatoes don’t have a tab).
Other Recipes You’ll Love
- Roasted Cauliflower Chickpea Potato Bowl
- Creamy Lemon Garlic Pasta
- Olive Garden Minestrone Soup
- Scarpaccia Zucchini Tart
- White Bean Lemon Orzo Soup
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The Recipe: Vegan Lasagna Soup
Ingredients
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 red onion, quartered
- 1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
- 1 carrot, roughly chopped
- 1½ cup mushrooms, regular or gourmet
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dried parsley
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp dried basil
- 24 oz pasta sauce, canned
- 28 oz canned diced tomatoes
- 4 cups vegetable broth, homemade or storebought
- 12 lasagna noodles, uncooked, broken into 2-inch pieces
- ½ cup vegan cream, such as cashew cream or coconut milk
Tofu Ricotta (optional)
- 350 gram extra firm tofu, 1 block
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 handful fresh parsley
Equipment
- Can Opener
- Large soup pot
Instructions
- In a food processor, combine the garlic, red onion, bell pepper, carrots and mushrooms into a veggie “ground”. You can do this in batches if your food processor isn’t big enough.
- Transfer the veggie ground to a pot over medium heat, with olive oil, if desired. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes, until softened slightly.
- Then add the tomato paste, soy sauce, parsley, nutritional yeast, and dried basil. Stir until the spices are fragrant and the veggies are cooked more, approximately 5 minutes.
- Add the pasta sauce, diced tomatoes and vegetable broth. Bring it to a boil, then add the broken lasagna noodles. Stir in the vegan cream, then reduce the heat and simmer until the noodles are tender, approximately 10 minutes.
- While this is cooking, you can whip up the vegan ricotta if desired (or just use vegan cheese). Combine the tofu, nutritional yeast, lemon, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and a handful of fresh parsley in the food processor until smooth.
- Scoop the lasagna soup into bowls, then add the tofu ricotta and enjoy!
