Most people that have come over for dinner at our house have had my lasagna. It's pretty easy to make, it serves two families, I can make two at a time and freeze one for a lazy weekend dinner, and it's just become a regular thing over here! I don't always cook with recipes, or use them as suggestions. This probably isn't too different from most lasagnas, and every time mine is probably a little different from the last, but this is how I make it:

You'll need

• 1 package lasagna noodles
• 30 ounces ricotta cheese (or a little less; it would probably be fine with 15 ounces)
• Mozarella cheese
• Parmesan cheese
• two jars of prepared tomato sauce (or make your own!)
• ground beef and/or Italian sausage (I like to go 50/50 but will also just use whatever I have at the time)
• olive oil
• garlic
• one large onion
• salt
• pepper
• oregano
• basil
• parsely
• 2 eggs (not pictured)
• 2 medium tomatoes (optional)

First I dice up the onion and cook it in about 1 Tbsp olive oil over medium heat until tender. Then I add 2 or 3 (whatever your taste!) cloves of crushed garlic (1-1.5 tsp) and cook until it just turns a little brown.

While that's all going, I mix up my ricotta, about 2 cups of shredded Mozzarella, 1 cup of Parmesan, 2 eggs, 1 Tbsp parsley, 2 tsp basil, 1 tsp oregano, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 pepper. (These proportions vary and I usually just eyeball it, so see what works for you!) Stir, stir …

If you buy Italian sausage like this, you need to remove the casings. I use two links, or about a half a pound …

and chop it up a little bit. I also use half a pound of ground beef.

Toss the meat in with the onions and garlic, break it up and stir until it's brown. I add a scant of salt and pepper to the meat, too.

Once the meat is brown, pour in a whole jar of sauce and reduce heat to low.

Stir that in and let that all soak for a while on low. In the meantime, have a large pot of water boiling, too.

Cook the lasagna noodles (I use 12 noodles for one lasagna) according to the package directions.

Pour half a jar of tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9×13" pan and shake it around until the bottom is coated. Save the other half a jar for later, you'll need it soon!

Once the noodles have cooked, drain them and let dry. I pull a long sheet of foil out over the counter and lay them all out flat to dry and cool.

Now the fun begins! Begin with layering 4 lasagna noodles over the sauce in the bottom of the pan. Top with half your cheese mixture. Then half the meat sauce.

Add four more noodles and repeat with the remaining cheese and meat sauce. Top it all off with four more noodles.

Spread the remaining half a jar of sauce on top of the noodles.

I sometimes slice up two tomatoes into 16 slices and top the sauce with them. I was one tomato short today, so just did this:

Grab a handful (maybe 3/4 cup?) of Mozzarella and sprinkle it on top of the sauce and tomato slices.

Sprinkle another handful of Parmesan along in there, too! I use approximately 1/2 cup. 

Cover with foil (I reuse the long strip that I had the noodles cooling on.) Bake at 350 for an hour covered, then remove the foil and let bake another 15-20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly! Let cool for a while (about 30 minutes) before serving.

I didn't get any inside pictures of the lasagna slices because we had new friends over for dinner and I didn't want to look like too much of a weirdo taking photos of my plate when we dug in. Trust me, the layers look absolutely yummy!

See just the recipe here.

2 Responses to “Lasagna”