This Lasagna Soup Recipe Got Almost 100 Million Views—Here's What Makes It So Good

Danny Freeman, the food creator behind the wildly popular Danny Loves Pasta accounts on Instagram and TikTok and the author of the Danny Loves Pasta cookbook is juggling a lot.

He's constantly working on new recipes and videos, plus he's the parent to two young kids. In his first book, he really leaned into making fresh, homemade, gorgeous pastas, which are one of his signatures, but for his second book, Italianish, which releases in late August, he flipped the script a bit and headed in a quicker, easier direction.

We had the chance to catch up with Freeman to talk about the new book and he even let Parade have the honor of revealing the cover image (see below). We chatted about what fans can expect from the new cookbook and got the lowdown on one of his most famous recipes, the iconic lasagna soup that racked up almost 100 million views.

Related: These Mini Lasagna Cups From TikTok-Famous 'Danny Loves Pasta' Are as Cute as They Are Easy

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Parade: Congrats on the new book! I know this one is different from your first cookbook. What inspired it? 
Danny Freeman: Italianish is inspired by my Italian-American upbringing and my life now as a parent to two young kids. With a colicky baby and a picky toddler, I hardly had time to cook dinner and fell into the habit of making the same things over and over again. I was feeling uninspired about cooking but also hesitant about trying new recipes that my kids might end up hating.

Oh yeah. Kids will change the way you cook quickly. How did you adjust your cooking to fit into your new family-focused life?
I began thinking about the Italian-American classics my family ate as a kid, and wondered how I could update them for our lives now. Could I take flavors I knew my kids already liked, but cook them in new ways to keep things interesting and help me get food on the table? I started making one-pot versions of family recipes, simplified dishes, or just a creative new take on an old favorite. That's how Italianish was born: from my desire to feed my family healthy, home-cooked meals that were new and exciting, but simple and based on flavors we already love.

One-pot recipes are key for any cook, but especially busy cooks. Speaking of, you have the famous lasagna soup recipe in the book, both a meaty and vegetarian version. What was it like to have that recipe blow up like it did?
I've had videos go viral in the past, but nothing like Lasagna Soup. Every day I had hundreds of people tag me in their photos and videos where they were making Lasagna Soup at home, so it was amazing to see how much it resonated with people. As a content creator and cookbook author, my work is often very solitary. I do everything by myself at home in my kitchen, and sometimes it's hard to know if my work is reaching people or having an impact. My video received lots of views and attention, but to see so many people actually cooking my recipe for themselves was the best part.

Why do you think the recipe resonated with cooks like it did? 
Lasagna is a dish that so many people know and love but it can feel time-consuming to make. I think Lasagna Soup was so successful because it was a way to have a comforting, familiar dish with much less effort. As I wrote in Italianish, it feels like a new, exciting dish to add to your dinner rotation, and yet at the same time, you've been eating these flavors for your entire life.

When I developed my take on lasagna soup, I swapped out the traditional ricotta for mozzarella and used less broth than normal, making it more of a stew, and my most popular recipe to date was born.

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