Everybody loves lasagna–and everyone makes it slightly differently.
Growing up, my Mom always made the red sauce with ground beef in it. But I’ve tried a lot of variants and this has become my basic go-to lasagna recipe when I have a large crowd to feed that wants simple, yet amazingly tasty, comfort food.
I find I get requests for this dish most often in autumn and winter.
This time I made it for only four mouths, but with Mark’s lunches for the next two weeks in mind.
Next time I’m sure I’ll do something fun and different to add some variety.
Old Fashioned Filling Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 box of lasagna noodles + left overs from previous boxes (how much you use depends entirely on the size of the pan you will fill)
2-3 cans of tomato sauce (ditto, but err on the side of more–leftover sauce refrigerates beautifully and is super easy to find uses for)
spices (I use thyme, oregano, parsley, garlic, onion flakes, hot pepper, basil, sage, and black pepper)
2 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
3 lb ricotta cheese
If the pan used is small, you will have left overs of the cheese–but it’s easy to find delicious ways to use them up, so no worries. The fact that my pan takes more than a box of noodles [yet not even close to 2 boxes] is always the bit that irks me.
This particular time I used a larger pan than I sometimes do [in fact it does not fit in my small oven, and had to be baked downstairs. But as I was also feeding them that night, there were no complaints], as I am counting on the left overs to be Mark’s lunch at work for the next week or two.
First pour the cans of tomato sauce into a saucepan. I generally add 3/4 of a can of water to one of the cans, swish it around to pick up the stray bits of sauce, pour it into the next can, repeat until all cans are clean of sauce, and dump that into the pan. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and when it begins to bubble, turn it down to simmering. Stir often.
I then begin heavily seasoning things, because I like a lot of spices in my red sauce. Mark prefers a very oregano heavy tomato sauce, while I enjoy giving it just a little bit [OK, sometimes more than just a little bit] of heat with some hot pepper.
Do not be afraid to play freely with your spice cabinet, though if using something quite interesting, like cinnamon, go very slowly–you can always add more if you think it’ll be fun, but not so much in the reverse (in which case, add more tomato sauce to thin it out).
While the sauce is simmering, grate your mozzarella cheese, and prep your workspace (clear off a good bit of counter space). Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Some recipes have you buy more expensive ‘no cook’ lasagna noodles (which I maintain are the same as the normal noodles–or close enough as to make no difference) or pre-cook the noodles before making the layered dish. This is just not necessary if you use enough sauce to soften the noodles in the oven. And you should, because that gives the dish enough red sauce to be richly spiced and delicious.
When the sauce has simmered roughly 15-20 minutes, tastes amazing, and is the consistency you like your red sauce, turn it off and place the sauce pan on a hot pad holder on the counter near your lasagna pan. Make sure everything is within easy reach, keeping the sauce pan and the lasagna pan near eachother so as to minimize any spills.
Open the ricotta, and give it a stir to mix everything as well as fluff it up beautifully.
Grab a ladle and ladle about one to two ladles full of sauce into the bottom of the pan, spreading it out quite thinly, so the lasagna does not stick as it cooks.
Then place the dry noodles into the pan–bear in mind as they soften and cook they shall swell up and take up more space, so give them a bit of room, though not too much. Feel free to break the noodles [or use already-broken noodles] to fit into spaces too small for the whole length to fit.
Next place sauce over the noodles–I used in this pan roughly a ladle per row of noodles, so about 3 ladles full per layer.
Then go ahead and begin to scoop ricotta on top of the sauce. I just toss spoonfuls rather roughly over the noodles, not bothering to try to smooth it out too much, as it will expand and meld as it heats up and cooks, so why waste time? Not to mention when we cut into the lasagna to serve and eat it, it gets quite messy.
Try to ration out the ricotta from the beginning so you do not end up with most of it in one layer. As I did this time. Although honestly, no one else noticed, and it tasted just the same.
Top the layer with shredded mozzarella cheese, and that’s how it is done!
Repeat with more noodles, sauce, ricotta, mozzarella until you run out of noodles. Or space.
Again, remember to leave space for expansion and bubbling–cleaning burnt on cheese and sauce out of the bottom of your oven is not fun, and can be avoided.
One the last layer, skip the sauce and just put the ricotta and mozzarella cheese directly on top of the noodles. Then add dried parsley to the top.
Pop it in the oven, and wait 45 minutes, or until everything is nice and bubbly with the cheese on top browned a bit.
Take it out of the oven and let it sit for a bit to settle and cool [do not forget to turn off the oven].
Slice and serve.
Mmmm. Lasagna is just as good later refrigerated and re-heated–use either a microwave or an oven (toaster sized is faster than the large one, naturally, but if it’s winter you would like to get the house just a bit warmer, use the large oven, just allow for more time).
I have yet to meet someone who is not amazingly in love with lasagna. It’s such a simple [though a bit time consuming] dish to make, and yet always wows everyone.
I have not, however, made a vegan version yet. Recently, I used half ricotta cheese and half soft tofu mixed together in the ricotta layer as opposed to just ricotta to great effect–no one knew, and raved about how rich and luscious it was. Though after being informed about it Mark claimed it did taste slightly different to him. Or perhaps he said the texture was slightly different. One of those.
Nonetheless, not in a bad way, and the tofu costs me a lot less than the ricotta, so I heartily endorse this plan. Truly amazing and melty vegan cheese I have not yet come across, so no thought on how to vegan-ize it all completely yet. If anyone does, do pass the brand my way please.
I’m also always on the look out for interesting twists on this layered dish–lavender or pumpkin or pesto, anyone?
Tags: comfort food, crowd pleasing, easy, italian, pasta