{Slow Cooker} 5-Cheese Lasagna Soup

This recipe is so easy and a yummy take on a family tradition! My family loves Italtian food, and pastas especially. Lasagna has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, but I remember my mom always hated cooking it because she would get home from work at a regular time (5-6 pm), have to prep everything, then still let it bake in the oven for at least an hour before we could eat. It was never a weeknight meal. Well, folks, things have changed!

I introduce you to my new favorite tradition, Slow Cooker 5-Cheese Lasagna Soup.

You will need the following for this recipe:

• lasagna noodles (oven ready if cooking in quick amount of time, otherwise not necessary)
• 1 can/jar spaghetti sauce
• 1 can petite diced tomatoes, not drained
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 container Italian blend cheese (Asiago, Parmesan, Romano), shredded
• 4 oz cottage cheese
• 6 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded 
• 1/8 tsp. celery salt
• 1/8 tsp. seasoning salt
• 1/8 tsp. basil
• 1/8 tsp. each salt & pepper
• 1 1/2 cup water

Here is what my ingredients looked like:

I obviously chose to go the quick-cook method tonight... Don't judge me.

I buy onions every once in a while in bulk, dice them all at once and freeze them to avoid frequently torturing myself. So these are my frozen, diced onions. Same difference. Deal with it peeps. It's an onion.

I used roughly 1/3 of the block of the mozzarella you see in this picture. If you know me, you know I don't measure much at all when I cook so pretty much everything in my recipes are guestimates... Just like the 4 oz of cottage cheese because it was a little less than half full... :)

Step 1: Brown the ground beef with the onion, garlic, and seasoning (season salt, salt, pepper) to taste. I prefer not to drain it so that later it keeps better flavor in the "soup," but if you drain it or have a lean cut of beef you can add extra water.

Step 2: Once the beef is completely cooked through (and drained if you are going to), add in the canned tomato products and the celery salt, basil, and any extra seasonings you may wish to add in. If you like a kick, you could add in a dash of red pepper flake at this point.

Step 3: Once you have added in the tomato products, give it a good stir and let it simmer for about 15 minutes to let the flavors soak in while you shred the mozzarella if you are a procrastinator like me or, like me, you had a bunch of munchkins running around your ankles whining at the time, occupying your thoughts and you hadn't gotten that far, yet. If you have already shredded the cheese, go get a drink and let the sauce bubble a few minutes while you break up the noodles.

Step 4: See.. Told you to break up those darn noodles... It is easier to eat the soup if you have them broken in advance since soup tends to be eaten with a spoon and spoons don't normally cut very well.. Break up the noodles and place at the bottom of your slow cooker. Then top with a layer of your sauce mixture that should be nice and hot by now.

Step 5: I didn't get a picture of the cheese mixture, but mix all of the cheeses together in a medium/large bowl (mozzarella, Italian blend, cottage cheese, etc). Mix it up as best you can. Spoon that over the sauce mixture. You want to use about 1/3 of it on each layer unless you are doing really thin layers, but I am normally always able to get 3 layers in my large slow cooker. Then repeat the layer process again and again until you are all out of the food!

Step 6: The end result before closing your slow cooker should look like the picture above, with cheese on top. Just cover and cook. If you are using oven ready noodles, you can cook on high for 2-3 hours before eating (really it is done in about 2) or on low for 4-5 hours. If you are using regular noodles, cook on high for 5 hours or on low for 6-8 hours. When you are ready to serve, just give it a good stir and you will see this:

I hope you enjoy the soup! We had it tonight and I am stuffed from half a bowl of it! It is great with a salad and veggies, garlic bread, etc... :) Love y'all!

BTW, keep posted for the new blog to be revealed at the end of the week... We are moving to a bigger and better site to combine our business and blog into one! It will be a transition, but I hope you will move with us. 

Oh and PS! I would love for any reader to comment >>> My husband does not count, but thanks, babe. Seriously, guys. I have been feeling kinda down and it would be nice to know that someone out there is for reals actually into this blog and not just reading it because they know me. I enjoy writing and I feel like this is a way for me to really express myself honestly in a way that a lot of people don't get to see the me I know. So, if you are actually into the blog legitimately, or have gotten something from it, learned something new, enjoyed a new recipe, etc, I would love to hear about it in the comment section of one of the posts that it is relevant to or this one. I will totally send you a hand-written Thank You card from little ol' me to you and it would make my day to know I made a difference to someone. 

Thanks, guys!