Upgrade Basic Pasta Sauce By Adding This Canned Soup Inspired By Italian Flavors

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

For some, having the time, energy, and resources to hand-craft fresh pasta or luxuriate in an involved sauce preparation process is something of a utopian ideal. Unfortunately, circumstances often call for culinary hacks that can upgrade meals in ways that would otherwise require time-consuming work. Next time you're preparing pasta at the end of a long day, though, one such hack entails reaching for a can of Campbell's Garlic Parmesan with Herbs soup.

We've long been advocates of making pasta sauce with leftover soup, but some varieties of canned soup can be game changers when you're hankering for some tasty noodles. The garlic-parmesan flavor profile fits right in with many pasta dishes, and it takes only a few steps to turn this particular soup into the basis of your next pasta dinner.

You could use an entire can of soup in your sauce, depending on how much pasta you're preparing, but there's no harm in playing it safe by starting off with less — about half a can — then steadily adding more until you reach the consistency you want. If you're adding this soup to thicken your sauce, a good rule of thumb is to significantly reduce the amount of butter, milk, cream, or parmesan your dish otherwise calls for. And, unless you want your pasta to be as garlicky as possible, you can skip mincing and frying any garlic.

A great candidate for this canned soup is chicken fettuccine Alfredo. After cooking your chicken, simply stir the canned soup into your saucepan with your other sauce ingredients until everything is incorporated and bubbling; you'll then have your soup-boosted sauce, which you can also use to make ultra-savory macaroni and cheese. While many recipes suggest using the more obvious choice of condensed cheddar cheese soup, the flavors of garlic, parmesan, and herbs would be welcome in most mac and cheese casserole recipes, especially given that all those ingredients feature in traditional recipes for pesto, which is one of the best additions to mac and cheese out there.

If you want something truly uncomplicated, this soup could work well as a pasta sauce in and of itself — but that's not true of all store-bought soups. Campbell's Garlic Parmesan with Herbs enjoys a dual purpose as a soup and a sauce not merely because of its Italian-style flavors, but because, as a condensed soup, it has the necessary thickness to coat pasta — conversely, thinner soups can't do that. This pantry staple's versatility doesn't end with pasta, either, and it would also make an excellent choice for making scalloped potatoes creamier.