Creamy White Lasagna Soup

Drove to Evarts on Saturday. January in Harlan County is a different kind of cold than Lexington. In Lexington, it's cold and flat and gray. In Harlan County, it's cold and the mountains press down on you and the hollow where Betty's house sits gets about four hours of direct sunlight in January and the rest is shadow. The road in was icy. The truck slid once on a curve near Pine Mountain and I caught it, but my heart rate didn't come back down until I pulled into Betty's driveway.

Betty had a cold. Not a bad cold, but a cold, and at seventy-six a cold is something you pay attention to because the line between "a cold" and "pneumonia" is thin when you're seventy-six and living alone in a house with inconsistent heat. She was bundled in a quilt on the couch, drinking hot tea with honey, and she looked smaller than I remembered, which she always does in winter — Betty is a summer creature, expanding in the warmth, contracting in the cold.

I made her chicken soup. Not chicken and dumplings — simpler. Chicken soup is what you make for sick people because it's gentle and warm and because there's actual science behind the idea that chicken soup helps with congestion. I used a whole chicken from the Walmart in Harlan (the nearest grocery to Evarts, twenty minutes), simmered it in water with onion, celery, carrots, garlic, peppercorns, and a bay leaf. After an hour, I pulled the chicken, shredded the meat, strained the broth, and put the meat back in with diced carrots, celery, and egg noodles. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and a squeeze of lemon, which Betty said was "fancy" and which I said was "vitamin C."

She ate a bowl. Then another. Color came back into her face. She said "You don't need to worry about me." I said "I know." We both lied. She lies about not needing help. I lie about not worrying. These are the lies that hold the family together — small, necessary falsehoods that allow two stubborn people to love each other without admitting they need each other.

I fixed the heat while I was there. The baseboard heater in the bedroom wasn't working — a tripped breaker, which I reset, and a thermostat that was acting up, which I couldn't fix properly but jury-rigged with a bypass that will hold until spring. The house needs work I can't do in a day trip. The roof needs patching. The bathroom floor is soft. The back porch — the one I rebuilt the steps for last year — is pulling away from the house. This is a house built by a coal company in the 1940s for a life expectancy of twenty years, and it's been standing for seventy. It's holding on the same way Betty is: through stubbornness and habit and a refusal to acknowledge that the foundation might be giving way.

I drove home in the dark. Three hours on mountain roads in January. The headlights caught snowflakes. The radio played old country — Merle Haggard, the Evarts soundtrack. I thought about my mother in that house, alone, cold, eating chicken soup I'd made, and I thought about what Connie and I are going to do when Betty can't live alone anymore. Not now. But soon. Soon enough that the question needs an answer even though the answer isn't ready.

The soup I made for Betty that Saturday was simple by necessity—a whole chicken, a handful of vegetables, time on the stove. But when I make it at home with a little more patience and a pantry behind me, I build it out into something richer: the same bones, the same shredded chicken, but finished with cream and layered with the kind of depth that makes you want a second bowl. If you’re cooking for someone who needs to be taken care of—or for yourself, on a night when you’re the one who’s been driving mountain roads in the dark—this is the version worth making.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts (or 2 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken)
8 lasagna noodles, broken into rough 2-inch pieces
1 cup heavy cream
4 ounces cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
1 cup whole-milk ricotta
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Build the base. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 7–8 minutes. Add garlic, Italian seasoning, thyme, and red pepper flakes and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Simmer the chicken. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a gentle boil. Add the bone-in chicken breasts, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 20–22 minutes until chicken is cooked through and reads 165°F at the thickest part. Remove chicken to a cutting board, let rest 5 minutes, then remove skin and bones and shred the meat. (If using rotisserie chicken, skip this step and add shredded chicken in step 4.)
Cook the noodles. Return the broth to a boil. Add broken lasagna noodles and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until just tender, about 9–10 minutes.
Add the cream and cheese. Reduce heat to low. Stir in heavy cream and cream cheese, stirring until the cream cheese is fully melted and incorporated. Add shredded chicken back to the pot. Stir in ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmesan until melted and the broth is creamy and smooth.
Finish and season. Stir in lemon juice. Taste and season generously with salt and black pepper. The soup will thicken as it sits—add a splash of broth or water to loosen if needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with additional Parmesan and fresh parsley. Serve with crusty bread or simple crackers.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy White Lasagna Soup — The Soup I Made When Betty Needed Color Back in Her Face