Sunday, March 28, 2010

Italian Lasagna

This last week, I decided to tackle a food I'd never tried before: lasagna! 

The recipe I tried was one I found through foodgawker.com a while ago, which can be found here

It used to be printed on the back of a lasagna noodle box, which makes me feel better about reposting it here. :)

Italian Lasagna

1/2 of a (1-pound) package lasagna, uncooked
1 lb bulk Italian sausage
1/2 lb ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (28 oz) can tomatoes, cut up (undrained)
2 (6 oz) cans tomato paste
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp basil
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1/4 tsp pepper
1 (15 oz) container ricotta cheese
1 egg beaten
1 tbsp parsley flakes
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese


Here's the lasagna pasta cooking. :) I know the recipe says to only use half the box, but I went ahead and made all of it. Figured I could freeze the rest and use it later. The pasta was just cooked according to the packaging instructions, then poured into a colander.

Alrighty, so first, cook the onions and garlic in a skillet on medium heat for a couple minutes. Then throw in the Italian sausage and ground beef. 


When the meat's cooking, make sure you really cut it into little bits. I didn't do that very well, you can see a lot of mine is just in big chunks. When the meat is nice and brown, you add the fennel seed, basil, sugar, pepper, and half the salt, as well as the diced tomato and tomato paste. If you don't have a big enough skillet (mine definitely wasn't, it's pretty crowded with all the meat), just move it all into a nice big pot. I just rinsed out the pot I used to boil the lasagna and poured the meat sauce in there.

Then you just let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

In another bowl, mix up the ricotta cheese, parsley, egg, and the rest of the salt. After the meat sauce is done simmering, layer everything in a 13x9 casserole dish. (I forgot to take pictures while layering :P) Put 1/3 of the meat sauce on the bottom, 1/2 the ricotta cheese on top, then some mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, and about three strips of pasta. Then repeat until you run out of sauce and ricotta cheese. 

One final layer of pasta and cheese on top, then the dish goes into a 375 degree oven, covered with foil, for 20 minutes. Uncover, cook another 20 minutes. When you take it out, let it rest for 15 minutes or so before you cut into it.

It was delicious! :D I also made some spaghetti squash to go along with it and some whipped garlic and basil butter for garlic bread.

1 comment:

  1. Ummmmmmmm YUMIIIIII good tutorial
    I will put into practice ^^

    ReplyDelete