I was idly throwing together a “blonde” lasagna tonight, and began wondering at the endless combinations possible with such a format. I make a 4 cheese (parm, romano, mozz, ricotta) with tomato sauce.
To this basic lasagna I can add (and have):
Mushrooms
black olives
pepperoni
italian sausage
ground beef
and any combination of the above.
The blonde lasagna tonight involves chicken, alfredo sauce, parm, mozz, and ricotta cheeses, and mushrooms.
Someday I would like to have a recipe for a kick ass veggie lasagna that won’t fall apart when I serve it.
My lasagna recipe uses six cheeses: mozzarella, parmesan, romano, provolone, fontina, and mizithra. I don’t use ricotta, even though it’s expected; I find it makes the dish too mushy. (And I had this confirmed by Cook’s Illustrated, even.)
I also like to use thin slices of beefsteak tomatoes as a layer.
Re the veggie lasagna, dump the ricotta per the above, and add diced zucchini to the red sauce. A splash of pesto will also help. Oh, and don’t pre-cook the noodles; let the moisture in the sauce etc soften them. That’ll fix the consistency of the dish.
Try making a roux and mixing it with whole milk or half-and-half until it thickens, let it cool, and then add in the ricotta or marscapone (my preference) and salt and black pepper to taste. You’ll get a thicker, richer tasting sauce that is smooth instead of “mushy” and without all the nasty clumping and flannel tongue of straight ricotta.
Give it a try; it really makes the lasagna much richer.
Now, are you speaking of regular old lasagna noodles uncooked, or the new fangled specialty noodles that are advertised as “oven ready”?
'Cause I tried the oven ready kind, and I cried when I took it out of the oven. It held together really nicely, but … bleh. I even put the required amount of extra liquid.
I cried because all that expensive cheese and italian sausage was now wrapped in hideous eeeeeeevil noodleness.
Tonight’s edition is much better!
Those “pasta plates” are kind of icky, in my experience. They absorb some water and then seal up, becoming less than al dente in the middle.
“Old style” lasagna noodles (hard with ripply edges) definitely need to be cooked before use. Fresh pasta sheets shouldn’t be cooked and will give the best results, but are a bit laboreous to make and a little more expensive to buy if you can find them, but well worth the effort and cost.
I don’t cook regular noodles beforehand and the dish always comes out just fine. Esp if I let it sit overnite and then reheat to serve. But, even with straight from the oven, unprecooked noodles do wonderfuly for me.
For a veggie lasagna that doesn’t fall apart, try mixing in frozen spinach (thawed, of course) with whatever curd cheese you’re using. (Ricotta, cottage cheese, or a mix of the two…) Layer with sliced cheeses and fresh spinach and basil leaves, tomato sauce (preferably fresh, but canned if you choose), and fresh tomatos. Experiment til you find the proportions that suit you best. I find that more cheese and less sauce keeps its shape better, but is incredibly rich.
I once saw a show about firehouse cooking, and the fireman chef liked to make “lazy man’s lasagna”. Instead of dealing with the big flat noodles, he cooked up a batch of ziti or penne and simply sprinkled them in single layers between the sauces and cheese. I tried it, and it turned out great! And it was much easier than classic lasagna.
I make three layers - meat sauce, spinach sauce and cheese sauce and apply them in various patterns. I don’t use lasagne (I personally think it is a waste of time) but use any other cooked pasta I fancy.
It’s very interesting that you posted this. I was toying around with the idea of using layers of farfalle pasta in lieu of traditional lasagna noodles the next time I make it.
Me, neither. I never pre-cook the noodles (regular crinkly-edge lasagna noodles) either – and it always comes out just fine. Just have to be sure to layer so that there is enough moisture above and below the noodles.
I do a straightforward bechamel & bolonaise sauce lasagne.
Make homemade spinach lasagna sheets. (Not as hard as it sounds, and makes all the difference: Flour, eggs, and spinach.)
Make bolonaise sauce (meat sauce). Two pounds of 80% lean beef (or combo of beef and pork.) 3 oz or so of diced prosciutto. 2 chicken livers. A cup or so of red wine. A cup or cup and a half of whole milk. Onion. Celery. Carrots. Garlic. Oregano and bay. Italian Plum Tomatoes and homemade chicken stock. The prosciutto and chicken livers make all the difference in this meat sauce.
I layer like this: pasta, meat sauce, healthy sprinkling of real parmesan (or grano padano or even pecorino), pasta, bechamel, parmesan, pasta, meat sauce, parmesan, pasta, beshamel, parmesan, pasta, meatsauce, parmesan, pasta.
If anyone wants a more detailed recipe, I can give it, but that’s the basics. It is yummy. (I just made it this weekend.) It takes a lot of work and time, but it’s well worth it on a Sunday. Your friends will kiss you when they hear you actually made the pasta yourself (and, really, it’s not that hard to make.) If you want, you can do the ricotta variations, but I prefer the bechamel and meatsauce lasagna myself.
I take frozen chopped spinach, thaw it, wrap it in a clean dishtowel, and squeeeeeze the hell out of it until it’s pretty dry. Then I mix that with the ricotta and a little nutmeg. For the rest I use the basic meat sauce and mozzarella.
That recipe is evil, I want chocolate lasagna so very bad now! FaerieBeth I am a happy convert to the uncooked noodle gang, as well as following the roux advice. Since those changes my lasagna stays together like it never would before, not that we minded eating slidy layers of yummy slop before but it’s no much nicer now. I’m guessing the not preboiling part soaks up whatever excess moisture mighta been hanging about, and the roux part just makes the cheese layers taste better, I made both changes at once so I’m not sure exactly which is doing what.
Count me in with the folks that hate the “oven ready” lasagna noodles. If I use the “real” lasagna noodles, I cook them about halfway and let the sauce soften them up the rest of the way. Seems like for a while there was a third alternative, a lasagna noodle that was thinner than the normal type but not paper-thin like the “oven ready”, and I used to use those without cooking them. But I can’t seem to find them anymore, I think the really thin ones took their place. Argh.
