Easy & Delicious (& new to me) CrockPot Soup

Last week, Abigail and I made the easiest & most yummy new crockpot recipe. I am constantly pinning new recipes on my Pinterest recipe board, but when it’s time to prepare the meals, I end up going back to the “same old same old.” But this one recipe looked good, so I decided to actually make a recipe instead of just collecting them. It didn’t disappoint. In fact, it was just as easy as our beloved “Taco Soup” but with an entirely different taste and feel. I adapted the recipe I found in order to make it even easier (and enabling it to make a large crockpot full.) This is definitely a keeper & will be on the home rotation this fall and winter!

Pasta Fagoli Crockpot Soup
(Adapted from Olive Garden’s Copy-Cat recipe here)

• 1 lb ground beef, cooked & drained
  1/2 or 1 med onion, chopped & cooked with the ground beef
  2-3 carrots, sliced
  2 cans of diced tomatoes, undrained
  1 can of res kidney beans, drained
  1 can of white kidney beans, drained
  1 box of beef broth or stock
  3 tsp oregano
  3 tsp pepper
  5 tsp parsley
  1 jar of spaghetti sauce
• I box of pasta. (We used penne.)

Place all ingredients except pasta into the crockpot and mix well. Cook on high for 4-5 hours, or low for 7-8 hours. Add the UNCOOKED past the last 45 minutes. (That’s my favorite step… Don’t even need to boil the pasta & dirty up another pan!) I used a whole box this last time & it was on the verge of being too much. But since we like pasta, it was fine. Next time, I plan to cut back a bit.

That’s it! How easy! And even easier if you keep 1lb packages of cooked ground beef in your freezer. I always try to cook up a few extra pounds to freeze. If you don’t have the onions cooked with the meat, they will be just fine added straight into the crockpot. Y.U.M!

Serve with a salad & garlic bread & you’ll have a new family hit. 🙂