I realize this is a huge oversite in the cooking department, but after all these years, I have never even attempted a basic lasagna. I didn’t grow up with lasagna. Didn’t have my first lasagne until I was about 11 (and ate so much of it I became constipated, which I remember very clearly to this day.)
I’ve got everything but the ricotta ( how important is this?) and now need everyone’s favorite recipes. I like the vegetarian kind, myself…
Oooh I used to make this veggie lasagna which uses tofu instead of ricotta. It’s actually really good, and I am not a veggie type person. You don’t have to pre-cook the noodles, either.
Ingredients
-lasagna noodles
-1 pound mozzarella
-2 big packets of firm tofu, pressed
-lots of fresh basil, chopped
-2 big jars sauce
-parmesan
-tin foil
-veggies(mushrooms, spinach, zucchini)
Mix the tofu and basil together
Assemble the layers in the order below, working from the bottom up
TIN FOIL
lots of parmesan/mozzarella
sauce
3rd layer noodles
sauce
veggies(mushrooms)
2nd ½ mozzarella
2nd ½ tofu/basil mixture
2nd layer noodles
sauce
veggies(spinach)
½ mozzarella
½ tofu/basil mixture
noodles
Sauce
Bake at 375 for one hour
Remove from oven—DO NOT REMOVE TIN FOIL and let stand 20 mins
You can use cottage cheese, too.
We make a lot of spagetti Lasagne - just use layers of spagetti instead of layers of wide noodles. We usually leave out the meat.
My wife makes a great lasagna that you don’t boil the noodles for. I think there’s enough sauce that they just cook in the juices. When she gets home I’ll ask her for the recipe. It’s really simple and comes out great.
I’d avoid subbing items like the first two posters mentioned on your first try, since if it comes out “wrong” it will be harder to identify why - do you just not like Then experiment with subsequent versions.
Nice things about lasagna - you usually get tasty leftovers and you can divide up pans or sides of the pan to make different variants. For example, my daughter doesn’t care for zucchini but my wife likes to add some slices to “her side”. That’s a bit trickier with spaghetti.
I make it by cooking up bolognaise style mince (with grated veggies (zucchini, carrot)), and layering pasta, low-fat ricotta, and mince till I run out. Then whatever grated cheeses I have around goes on top.
My mum makes it with the same mince (minus the veggies) but a white sauce with cheese instead of the ricotta. She puts a layer of pasta between every other layer, so pasta, cheese sauce, pasta, meat, pasta, cheese sauce, etc. That makes it more filling for hungry crowds. She pours in an extra cup of water to keep it moist. I do this too sometimes.
Hers is tastier, mine is a lot lower in fat, and still pretty good.
Well, sure, if you’re planning on never dying and facing your Maker.
Personally, I like a lasagne that has no more than 3 layers of pasta. So, it’d be layered like (veggies can be substituted for meat):
Sauce
pasta
ricotta/mozz mix
meat (sliced italian sausage, cooked - or browned ground)
sauce
pasta
ricotta/mozz mix
meat
sauce
pasta
ricotta/mozz mix
meat
sauce
Top with shredded mozz and parm, tent with foil and bake until done. If you like your lasagne with the cheese browned on top, remove the foil until the cheese browns. I don’t, so I leave the foil on the whole time.
You can also throw some bechamel (or a touch of jarred alfredo sauce) after the sauce layer if you like. It definitely makes for a richer lasagne.
I’ve done the “no-boil” method, and it’s turned out fine, but I boil the noodles until just under el dente, and let them cook the rest of the way in the oven. Smearing the ricotta seems to be a little easier if the lasagne is a bit pliable.
Last tip: I make my lasagne a bit on the “dry” side, and have a little pot of sauce reserved for serving. Some guests like lots of sauce, some like a little.
Hope that helps…
Not very. I don’t like the ricotta-based lasagnas, but rather prefer the more northern-Italy style lasagna that uses bechamel for the white layer. My asbolute favorite lasagna recipe is this one. The recipe is for lasagna with homemade noodles, which is how I prepare it, but you can use store-bought sheets, as well. The recipe also calls for cooking your lasagna sheets before layering them and I have tried both cooking and not cooking the fresh pasta and, in my opinion, the cooking step isn’t necessary (with the fresh pasta) and is just a pain in the ass.
I think the ricotta is pretty darn important. I mix an egg or two into mine, with some herbs and a bit of salt. The egg helps it set up better.
Haven’t pre-cooked the noodles in ages. You really don’t have to if you have enough sauce.
Hmmm. Seems like the ricotta question could be contentious. I think it’s all a matter of taste–I find it can make the lasagna really heavy so I use a very light hand when I do include it. My SO’s mom (born and raised in Calabria) doesn’t use ricotta at all in her lasagna.
The no boil method works fine in my experience.
One thing I think we can all agree though, is that (1) you need to let it sit for a bit after you take it out of the oven; and (2) it will be better the next day.
It’s just a regional/stylistic difference. Italian-American lasagna tends to be heavier and usually contains ricotta and/or mozzarella cheese, as a lot of that style of cooking inherits from the Southern Italian and Sicilian traditions, where those cheeses are used. Northern Italian lasagna and the types of lasagna you’re more likely to find in Europe outside Italy (at least in my experience) tend to be based on a thick meat sauce (ragu bolognese) alternating with bechamel/besciamella.
Hint to those of us who don’t have huge families: you can make a nice lil’ lasagna for 2 in a loaf pan. I use a pyrex loaf pan and make 1/3 of a recipe. The noodles fit in it just fine, and it’s tall enough to stack 'em up nice.
I usually just wing it when it comes to lasagna. Half-boil 3 lasagna noodles (or use no-boil ones. They taste gummy to me, but I hear other people like them). Layer with tomato sauce, cheese, spinach, meat, whatever you have lying around. The trick is that most stuff needs to be dry - usually not a problem for anything but spinach, make sure it’s dried out completely before using it in the lasagna. Cover & bake. Yum yum yum.
For clarity, I’ve never bought the noodles sold as no-boil. Just regular lasagna noodles (Dreamfield’s work fine too) and lots of sauce. If you run out of sauce you can stretch it with a little salted water.
The fact that some of you are referring to the type of pasta used in lasagne as “noodles” may explain some of the confusion I have experienced while reading American recipes. Over here, noodles are strictly the thin, string-like things, usually the type used in Asian recipes. Nobody would ever call lasagne pasta a noodle.
So, after 42 years of never making a lasagne, I made two of them today!
How surprisingly easy they were. Both are heading up north for a weekend at a friends cottage. ( It is a work weekend. The guys are working on building a deck.)
Tasted one of them and it is fabuloso. (Which is saying ALOT for my cooking.)
I’ve never worked with ricotta cheese before and have to ask why is it so …uh…kinda like cottage cheesish?
And, now that I think about it, what makes cottage cheese so cottage-y? Why is it called COTTAGE cheese?
God, I hope I don’t become some Food Nazi.
It’s a fresh cheese (not aged) so it can be made quickly by anyone with access to milk, its the kind of thing you might make if you were a cottage dweller with one or two cows out back.
Ricotta is made from the leftover whey (high protein liquid) that remains when a more solid fresh cheese (like, hint: mozzarella) is made. Commercial ricotta in the U.S. also contains milk.
Here’s how you make it at home in the traditional manner:
Ricotta cheese is essential. Cottage cheese is NOT an acceptable substitute. The flavor and texture are entirely different. People used to use cottage cheese in lasagna in the 1950s. They also used to use ketchup in those poor, suffering lasagnas.
I admit to getting the packages of shredded Italian cheeses, rather than grating it myself. The packages contain four or five cheeses, which I add to the ricotta. I get whole milk ricotta if I can.
I don’t use the no-boil noodles, and I don’t boil them. I put in a light layer of sauce, a layer of noodles, a layer of the cheese mix, a layer of the sauce mix, and then repeat from there. I try to end with a layer of noodles and then pour some plain sauce over them. I make sure that there’s plenty of sauce in the pan, and add some water. Similarly, I don’t boil manicotti or pasta shells prior to stuffing them with the cheese mix, and I cover them with sauce and water.
When I’m not cooking for vegetarians, I make a meat and veggie sauce, with ground beef, onion, garlic, bell pepper, and mushroom. When I am cooking for vegetarians, I leave out the beef.
An easy way to make garlic bread is to melt butter, brush it on slices of some sort of white bread, and sprinkle Mrs. Dash’s Garlic and Herb mix over it. I can’t eat this any more, as it has far too much black pepper in it for me, but it makes a delicious garlic bread.
Certain people should be very glad that I am not supposed to give out customized user titles any more, or they would have Heathen or Heretic as their title. I’m looking at YOU, mack and pulykamell.
Pfft. You use Mrs. Dash on garlic bread and I’m the heretic? 
I agree cottage cheese is heretical, but bechamel is not. Have a lasagna pretty much anywhere in Italy (as well as the rest of Europe) except for the very south/Sicily and you’re most likely getting lasagna with bechamel. Nothing heretical about it.
I saw this on Barefoot Contessa the other day and it looked great (doesn’t require Ricotta):