camp meals

Lasagna Soup

Broken noodles, sausage, and tomato powder in one pot. Lasagna without the layering or the oven.

calories
940
weight
7 oz
cal / oz
134
protein
36 g
serves
1, scales
prep
5 min
cook
14 min
total time
19 min
water
700 ml boiled
cost
$$

Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.

  • Dinner
  • Canister stove
  • Liquid fuel
  • Alcohol / Esbit
  • Backpacking
  • Car camping
  • Basecamp
  • Canoe / raft
  • Nut free
  • One pot
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Basic

Ingredients

Lasagna noodles 3 oz snapped into pieces under an inch at home
Tomato powder 3 tbsp stands in for crushed tomatoes
Chicken bouillon powder 2 tsp
Dried summer sausage or hard salami 2 oz Italian-style if you can find it; diced small
Dried minced onion 1 tbsp
Garlic powder 1/2 tsp
Dried oregano 1/2 tsp
Dried basil 1/2 tsp stirred in at the end, not the start
Grated parmesan 3 tbsp the dry shaker kind keeps for weeks
Olive oil 1 tbsp
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

  1. Bring 700 ml of water to a boil with the bouillon, dried onion, garlic powder, and oregano.
  2. Add the noodle pieces and the diced sausage. Simmer on a low flame, stirring often so the pasta does not weld to the bottom.
  3. At about eight minutes, whisk in the tomato powder. Adding it earlier makes it scorch.
  4. Cook until the noodles give, another three or four minutes. Add a splash of water if it goes past soup into paste.
  5. Cut the heat. Stir in the oil, the parmesan, and the dried basil. Salt and pepper, then let it sit two minutes to thicken.

Lasagna is a layering problem, and layering is not something a pot on a rock does well. Boiled in one vessel, the same ingredients still work, because the starch coming off the noodles is what gives lasagna sauce its body in the first place. Break the noodles small at home. Long shards are hard to eat with a spoon and they expand more than you expect.

The fresh parts had to go. Crushed tomatoes become tomato powder, which weighs almost nothing and rehydrates fine as long as you add it late so it does not stick and burn. Ricotta and fresh mozzarella have no trail future, so grated parmesan and olive oil carry the fat instead. Summer sausage replaces raw Italian sausage: already cured, already cooked, and it releases enough seasoned fat into the broth to do most of the same job.

Packing

Everything dry except the parmesan and the sausage goes into one bag, with the tomato powder in a small separate bag inside it so you can hold it back. Sausage and cheese ride in their own bag.

Variations

  • Skip the sausage, use vegetable bouillon, and add a handful of dried mushrooms with the onion.
  • A tablespoon of powdered whole milk stirred in with the cheese gets you closer to the ricotta dollop.

https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/lasagna-soup