Lasagna

It’s never a bad time to make lasagna.

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(Jump to the recipe here.)

Even if you’ve got New Year’s resolutions, lasagna can still be accommodated.

Lasagna is one of those complex dishes that you can make as intricate or as simple as you’d like. I’ve once “tossed” a pan of a meatless, pesto-heavy, version together in under an hour, and I’ve gone so far as to make my own lasagna pasta, red sauce, and grind my own meat. Once you’ve made it a couple times, you’ll get used to putting as much time into it as you’d like or being able to customize it for whatever you’re in the mood and how much time you’d like to devote.

To me, lasagna only needs three things to be lasagna: lasagna pasta, a cheese mixture of ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan, and tomato sauce.  Anything else is optional. (Traditional Italian chefs may be grinding their teeth right now, but… traditional Italian chefs are probably not reading my budding blog just yet! But comments are always welcome!) (I have seen a traditional recipe that uses a béchamel sauce in the place of ricotta, but I love ricotta so much, I can’t bring myself to try that one. Maybe I’ll try it when I make a ricotta mousse for dessert one day so I can still get some ricotta in somewhere; we’ll see.)

This lasagna recipe is a beautiful compromise between a quick version and a three-day, full-committal version, as it uses store bought lasagna pasta and a store-bought marinara sauce base. (I’ve slated a blog post for hand-made lasagna and ravioli/tortellini pastas later in the year as well as one for home-made marinara and pizza sauces, so those are on the way. Until then, there’s no reason to wait on making lasagna.)

Let’s get to it!

Lasagna

You’ll Need:

For the Sauce/Meat Layers:

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 shallot onions or ½ yellow, sweet onion, finely diced
• 4 – 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 – 3 oz. mushrooms of your choice, finely diced
• A handful of fresh herbs
  •   1 oz thyme
  •   1 oz parsley
  •   1 sprig rosemary
  •   1 small sprig basil
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp black pepper
• 1 lbs ground beef
• 4 oz ground pork
• 24 to 32 oz marinara sauce

For the Cheese Layers:

• 8 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
• 4 – 6 oz Parmesan cheese
• 5 oz ricotta cheese
• 2 oz fresh basil
• 1 oz pesto (completely optional)

For the Pasta Layers:

• 9 – 12 sheets lasagna pasta
• 4 Tbs sea salt (or coarse salt), for cooking

Start by filling a large, 12-quart, stock pot with about 10 quarts of water and add plenty of salt, about 4 Tablespoons. Bring to a boil.

Then start making the sauce.

Mince your shallot and garlic.

Finely dice your mushrooms.

Pluck the leaves off the stems and mince your herbs. (Only use a sprig or two of basil here, and reserve the rest of the basil for breaking onto the cheese layer.)

Heat 2 Tbs olive oil in a very large sauté pan over medium heat. Once the oil is warm when you hover your hand over the pan, sauté your shallots and garlic for a few minutes, stirring and tossing once or twice.

Add your diced mushrooms and sauté for another minute or two.

Add your ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp black pepper.

Add your ground meats and break roughly apart with a wooden spoon. Allow to slightly brown on the bottom, but only slightly, about a minute or two, then begin to flip and break the meat some more. Sauté for another minute or two as you break the meat into as fine of pieces as you can, try to get the meat very small and even. (And leave the meat a smidge pink, you’re going to bake it for 30 minutes very soon.)

Add your minced fresh herbs and toss around evenly.

Add your tomato sauce and heat through to combine the sauce with all of the other flavors you’ve created in your pan.

Turn the heat off, and/or remove the pan from the heat.

(A note on ground meats: Here in Moab, I have a kind-of-a-conundrum that’s actually a benefit. I can’t always find organic ground pork at my City Market, but I also own half of a meat grinder, because my husband had one when I married him, and so now it’s half mine, but I use all of it 😉 I started re-grinding ground beef when making Italian meatballs trying to replicate the meatballs at a restaurant in Vero Beach, FL called Trattoria Dario. Spaghetti and Meatballs is Kevin’s favorite dish, and Trattoria Dario’s is stellar, so of course I set to copying it as soon as we got home, and part of that involved getting the perfect texture by grinding my own meat twice or giving the store-ground beef a second, finer grind.  Because I own this meat grinder, I like to grind a little bit of pork meat to add to the ground beef for lasagna, and I like to re-grind the beef, making it just a smidge finer. This is nitpicky at the very least, and is not necessary, and completely optional, but I like to do it for the texture. You can leave the ground pork out altogether (I started adding it to my lasagna recipe after I read one of Chef Vincenzo’s recipes, so now whenever lasagna is on the meal rotation, I like to make a grilled pork tenderloin the night before and save (before grilling) about 4 oz for grinding into lasagna.)

Now it’s time to cook the pasta a little.

Add 9 to 12 sheets of lasagna pasta to your pot of boiling salted water. As soon as the pasta sheets have softened, stir to separate the pasta and to give it space to cook. Cook only 8 minutes, because, again, you’re about to bake it for 30 minutes very soon.

(As to the number of pasta sheets you’ll need: This quantity depends on the size of your baking dish – with most 9×13 glass baking pans, you’ll need 3 sheets per 3 layers, if your pan is slightly larger, you may need an extra sheet or two to patch the layers and get decent coverage and separation of the layers.)

After separating the pasta in the water and then boiling for 10 minutes, strain and then use a wooden spoon handle to remove the pasta sheets onto a parchment or dish-towel-lined baking sheet.

Now it’s time to assemble.

Preheat your oven to 375˚F.

Spoon a few tablespoons of the meat sauce over the bottom of the pan and spread it out slightly, then arrange a layer of pasta sheets across.

Then layer ½ of the meat sauce and spread it evenly.

Then break apart pieces of mozzarella, using about 1/3^rd of the mozzarella.

Then spoon 1/3^rd of the ricotta, trying to spoon it evenly spaced.

Take half of your remaining basil and tear pieces and scatter them evenly.

Then I also like to dollop small bits of pesto evenly over the top here and there.

Then grate 1/3^rd of the Parmesan all over the top.

(Basil usually does really well for me in my yard, and I make copious amounts of pesto in the summer, and then freeze it in ice cube trays until solid, then wrap those cubes in plastic wrap and put the cubes in a freezer bag. Then I’ve got a Tablespoon of pesto whenever I want it all year ‘round. You can also buy jarred pesto at the grocery store. I usually find it either near the jarred artichokes and olives, or sometimes near the balsamic vinegar. But it’s optional. I love ricotta and I love pesto, so I put them both in, because it’s my lasagna 😉 )

Add another layer of pasta sheets. Then repeat the other two layers: (1.) the other half of the meat sauce then (2.) 1/3^rd of all the cheeses/torn basil/pesto.

Then add a final layer of pasta sheets and top with the final third of all the cheeses. (No meat or basil on very top, just cheese!)

I like to press the layers down with the back of a spatula just a bit to solidify it all into one before baking, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake in your 375˚F preheated oven for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake for 10 minutes more.

If your cheese hasn’t browned by now, you can turn the broiler on for a few minutes to get it nice and toasty.

Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 or 10 minutes before slicing in.

I like to serve it with the obligatory, very simple salad of green and red leaf lettuce topped with tomatoes, onions and a little bit of cheese if I remembered to save some out. Let your family drizzle with a little olive oil and vinegar and add some black pepper. It’s a full meal and a full sense of accomplishment!

Mangia e divertiti!

––Becky

Download the recipe file here.