Lasagna Recipe

Because y’all have asked about my lasagna recipe, I’ll share it here. The most important thing to know is that I don’t eat it, don’t like it, never really had it, so I can’t tell you if mine is the best or the worst. Vince says mine is delicious. He’s a smart man! 🙂 Again, it’s been over 25 years since he had lasagna made by anyone else so . . take it for what it’s worth. Here’s a text I sent to the neighbor about sharing the lasagna.

After eating it, he sent me a photo of his family with thumbs up and this note:

Either it was good or he was just being nice.

Another thing I’ve learned is that there are all kinds of ways to make lasagna – some use different cheeses, some use ricotta, some use cottage cheese. Basically, in my non-Italian opinion, here’s all you need to make the sauce:

• Tomatoes – usually a combination of some of these: sauce, puree, crushed, paste
• Cheese – mozzarella, parmesan, cottage cheese, ricotta – some or all
• Onions & garlic
• Herbs – basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, parsley – all or some. Add anything you want.
• Meat – Italian sausage and ground beef

You kinda just make it the way you like it.

My preference, for the most part, is to make it in smaller containers and freeze them before baking. In this post, I talked about having several of the same size of Pyrex (or similar) glass dishes. I will often freeze dishes in these containers. After they freeze (or whenever I remember), I will dip these in warm water, they pop right out, I vacuum seal the contents and tick them back in the freezer. Then the dishes are washed and ready for the next load. When it’s time to bake whatever was in that dish, I cut open the vacuum seal bag, the frozen “blob” fits right back into the glass container, I let it defrost usually in the fridge overnight, then bake it. That’s my preference for freezing lasagna. Yesterday I wanted to use my new lasagna dish and I wanted to share some with the neighbor so I made the whole thing in the one container.

One more thing: The sauce can be used as a meat sauce for any pasta. Sometimes when making sauce like this, it grows beyond what I would possibly need for a pan of lasagna. This is the best meat sauce. Here’s how I make it:

Meat:

• 1 pound of ground beef
• 1 pound of Italian sausage

Brown the meat in a Dutch oven. I use a wooden spatula and keep “chopping” til the meat is in very small pieces. If there’s too much grease in the pot, either drain it or soak it up with paper towels.

Veggies:

Add chopped onions and saute til they’re clear. Add 6 cloves of garlic that has been chopped.

Tomato Products:

Vince’s dad always said tomato paste made food bitter. I never met Vince’s dad but I’ve heard that a million times so we don’t even keep tomato paste in the house. Yesterday I thought about using a bit of tomato paste just for the heck of it. I thought I had seen a tube of tomato paste. Yes, I found it. The use by date was 2012. I thought . . that could be a little too old for safety. I did open it over the trash can to see what it looked like and it was bad!

I used one 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes, 3 cans of tomato sauce. I put a little water in the bottom of each can, swish it around to get all the good stuff out. You’ll need about 1/2 cup water added total.

Add all that to the pot with the meat, onions and garlic.

Herbs & Spices:

Here’s where you make it shine and make it what you want. Add any of the herbs you want in the amounts you want. I add 1-1/2 T. dried basil (in the summer I would add fresh), 1 tsp. fennel seeds, 1 tsp. Italian seasoning, 3 T. fresh parsley, chopped, 1 tsp. salt (or to taste), black pepper to taste.

Stir all the herbs into the pot, simmer on low, stirring occasionally for at least 2 hours. Add water if needed but you want it to end up fairly thick.

Once your sauce is where you want it to be, being assembling the dish.

Cheese:

I use 1 pounds mozzarella and 8 oz. of parmesan.
I also use 1 – 16 oz. (which is now 15 oz.) container of ricotta, missed with 1 egg and 2 T. chopped parsley

Start by greasing the dish.

NOTE: I used oven ready lasagna because that was all Aldi had. I had never used it before but I will definitely use it from now on. Super easy and Vince said it tasted fine.

I make it with several layers. You can use two, three or even four layers of lasagna noodles. If using two layers, you will put more “stuff” between the layers.

Here’s how I do my layers:

Layer 1: Spread a thin layer of sauce.
Layer 2: Add one layer of noodles (I used 12 noodle total – 3 going lengthwise on each layer, with half a noodle across the top where there was a gap).
Layer 3: Add the thinnest layer of pasta, then some of the mozzarella cheese.
Layer 4: Add another layer of sauce.
Layer 5: Add another layer of noodles.
Layer 6: Mix the ricotta, egg and parsley. Stir well and pull spoonfuls onto the noodles. The ricotta should melt and spread out nicely – no need to try to spread it.
Layer 7: Add another layer of sauce.
Layer 8: Add just a bit of mozzarella and parmesan. Save enough for the very top – you want more cheese there than here.
Layer 9: Add another layer of noodles.

You can continue adding layers but if your pan is getting full, just do this:

Layer 10: Add more sauce.
Layer 11: Add the final cheeses.

Spray a piece of aluminum foil with Pam and cover the top of the pan.

Be smarter than I am and put a drip pan under the dish.

Bake for about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let sit for 15 minutes before cutting.