The Viral Lasagna Hybrid Snack You Didn't Know You Needed

Lasagna is a warm comfort dish that's perfect for a crowd, but it can also be a messy dish to make and enjoy. Whether you want all the flavors and textures of lasagna as a snack or simply in a form that's easy to eat with your hands and serve at parties, a new viral dish has hit social media: lasagna garlic knots. The best part of this hybrid dish just might be that it combines the beloved layered pasta with its trusty companion: garlic bread. 

Introduced by Jessica Hirsch on Instagram, lasagna garlic knots fold all of the components of the pasta dish neatly into canned croissant dough. Ultimately, this means each bite contains pasta, meat sauce, and cheese for a snack-able version. (Try using Tasting Table's classic lasagna bolognese recipe — or vegan lasagna recipe — to prep the meat sauce for scrumptious homemade flavor). But how exactly does this viral dish come together? It's all about the layering.

The key to making lasagna garlic knots all comes down to how Hirsch stacks up the components because it is a small space to work with. The snack starts with a triangle of canned croissant dough laid out flat. The Instagrammer spoons sauce-cooked ground beef while leaving the liquidy sauce out. Next, a dollop of ricotta and a sprinkle of shredded mozzarella (don't forget to opt for low-moisture mozzarella) are added before a small piece of lasagna noodle tops it off. By wedging the cheese in between the meat and pasta, the cheese can melt into the ground beef while holding everything together. Finally, the components are wrapped in the bread dough into a knot, brushed with butter, topped with a sprinkle of parmesan, and baked.

While this is a simple and easy approach to the undeniably popular snack, you can also make the garlic knots from scratch for soft rolls with a yeast-forward flavor. You can find Tasting Table's classic buttery garlic knot recipe here. No matter what version of this snack people make, it's clearly one many Instagram users are ready to experiment with.