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Lasagna

Jennifer Mathews

There are so many variations to this classic Italian dish. I guess you can call this a casserole, although my family never used that word to describe anything we ate. We’ve already posted the Big Lasagna recipe from Samin Nosrat, which has a delicious creamy béchamel sauce. This version is what I grew up with and uses seasoned ricotta as the filling. Sometimes I use my bolognese sauce to make a lasagna, but this time we went vegetarian with our marinara sauce. Whatever version you create will be comforting and delicious to share with your family.

Tips:

  • Do the work one day and make 2 lasagnas. Bake one for dinner and place the uncooked second lasagna in the freezer for another time. Bake the lasagna at 400 degrees for 60 minutes covered with foil. Remove the foil and bake for another 20 minutes.

Lasagna

PREP 20 minutes

COOK 60 minutes

INGREDIENTS

2 boxes Barilla no cook lasagna noodles

4 cups marinara sauce, made or bought

16 oz. whole milk ricotta

1 egg

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 cups shredded or sliced mozzarella

Kosher salt and pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

  2. In a large bowl combine the ricotta, egg and about half of the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. Add some salt and pepper. Mix well.

  3. In a 9”x13” casserole pan place enough tomato sauce on the bottom so lightly cover the bottom.

  4. Layer the bottom of the pan with lasagna noodles, overlapping if you need to, to cover the entire surface.

  5. Add an even layer of the ricotta mixture, about 1/2 of the bowl. Ladle some tomato sauce on top then add another layer of noodles. Gently press the noodles down to spread the filling. I like to alternate the direction of the noodles on each row. I don’t know if that does anything, but that’s the way I was taught.

  6. Continue layering the lasagna with placing the rest of the ricotta mixture on the noodles, followed by some tomato sauce and another layer of noodles. This will be the top layer of the lasagna.

  7. Cover the top with tomato sauce and the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

  8. Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for about 45 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake the lasagna for another 15 minutes. The sauce should be bubbling and the cheese should be golden and melted on top.

  9. Remove from the oven and allow the lasagna to rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting into it. If it’s too hot the cheese will just ooze out. Enjoy!