Whether you call it sweater weather, PSL season, or just fall, this is a time of year when soup is on the menu and minds of consumers. It’s been on our brains and the stovetop here at Barilla too, and we like to remind everyone that when you are putting forward a soup that includes pasta, you’re doubling up the comfort food crave-ability factor! Here are a few of our favorite soups with pasta for your inspiration.  

Chef Leo Maurelli III, chef at the Auburn University Hotel & Conference Center, created this “Pasta Fagioli with Alabama Collards and Barilla Pipette,” bringing a sense of place with the addition of local smoked ham hocks and collard greens. “In Alabama, the seasons provide a bounty of quality ingredients. I wanted to take this traditional Italian dish and marry it with the flavors of the South,” he says. Smoked ham hocks introduce a distinctive richness, giving this classic a signature spin.  

Our favorite chef/dietitian Pam Smith gave us this “Lemony Orzo Soup with Leaf Spinach and Chicken Mushroom Meatballs.” It’s a rustic nod to the classic Greek lemon and orzo soup, with a smart upgrades at the edges and blended chicken-mushroom meatballs for added protein. 

Also from Chef Pam, and in keeping with Leo’s southern inspiration, is this Chicken and Campanelle “Dumplings” dish. We loved Pam’s idea to puree some of the cooked pasta down into the bone broth as a thickener in the soup, while allowing the rest of the campanelle pasta to provide texture and the homestyle dumpling-like effect.  

Another inventive soup thickener idea came from Chef Jeffrey Quasha of Morrison Dining. Riffing on the idea of a breakfast “ramen,” chef melts American cheese into the broth, with more traditional chashu pork belly and fudgy egg as accompaniments. With Barilla Protein+ as angel hair pasta as the noodles, and edamame too, there’s a natural nutritional boost. Slurp!