When I set up this blog, I didn’t think of my cooking hobby as one of the things I’d likely include here. But it’s not like the blog is overcrowded at the moment. In fact I’m holding back a number of writing-related posts I have in mind until my book is actually out (so that there will be some slight chance someone is actually looking). Meanwhile I make a lasagna that generally turns out quite good, and I made it again yesterday so it’s on my mind. So how about a recipe?
Homemade Lasagna
One problem with giving you the recipe is that I don’t actually use a recipe. I just kind of wing it based on previous spaghetti sauces and thoughts of “maybe this would be good.” But here’s my best reconstruction:
Ingredients:
Pasta:
I use this recipe for the pasta but any recipe will do. If you’d rather use store-bought, go ahead, but it won’t be as good. If you use dried noodles, soften them in hot water for around 30 minutes before assembling the lasagna, but do not cook them. Homemade or store-bought fresh noodles don’t require any pretreatment at all.
The noodles will cook in the lasagna itself, taking in excess liquid from the sauce which both flavors the noodles and keeps the whole lasagna firm when you cut it into portions later. If you cook them first, you’ll have flavorless noodles and watery lasagna.
Meat Sauce
- 2 lbs Italian sausage, removed from the casings
- Using sausage instead of ground meat brings a lot of flavor you won’t have to add yourself. I like 1 lb of hot plus 1 lb of mild. Experiment to find a mix you like.
- 1 onion, any variety, diced
- Garlic, diced
- Amount to your taste. I use 5 cloves. Remember that the sausage will bring a lot of its own flavors, so use less than you would if you were starting with ground meat.
- 1 package “baby bella” or white button mushrooms, coarsely chopped
- 1 12 oz can tomato paste
- 1 14 oz can peeled, seeded & diced tomato
- You can peel, seed and chop fresh tomato if you like, but this is one case where I’ve found that canned works better.
- 1 cup red wine
- 1/4 cup ketchup (yes, really)
- Dash of Worcestershire sauce
- Dash of Soy sauce
- Olive oil
You can do the meat sauce all in one pot. I like a cast iron dutch oven for the job.
Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to the pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the sausage, onion and garlic and brown, stirring occasionally. Do not drain.
When the sausage is brown and crumbly, add the cup of red wine and stir to deglaze the bottom of the pot. Then add everything else from the ingredients list and stir to combine. Bring to boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for at least an hour. You can put everything into a slow cooker and simmer all day if you like— you’re essentially making a stew and the longer and slower you cook it, the better it will be.
When you’re ready to start building the lasagna itself, taste the sauce and add salt & pepper if you think it’s needed. It probably won’t be: the sausage should have brought all the salt and seasoning you need.
Assembling the lasagna:
- Additional ingredients:
- 1 package large portabella mushroom caps, sliced into thin strips
- Cheese:
- It’s traditional for at least one cheese layer to be ricotta, but I dislike ricotta so I leave that out. Include it if you like it. Any variety of Italian cheese will do for the other layers. I use sliced provolone in the middle layers, and either shredded mozzarella or a “pizza blend” on top.
Preheat the oven to 350.
In either a lasagna pan or a standard 9×13 baking dish, spread a thin layer of the liquid from the meat sauce (but no actual chunks of meat or mushroom). This is just to stop the bottom layer of noodles from sticking.
In adding layers, you have lots of opportunity to adjust the lasagna to your taste. The amount of meat sauce produced by my recipe above will give you a very meaty lasagna if you use it all. On the other hand, you can add only thin layers of meat sauce and produce a lasagna that emphasizes the pasta and cheese (in that case, freeze the leftover meat sauce for the next time you make spaghetti).
Whether thick or thin, add the layers in this order:
- Pasta — trim the noodles as needed for complete coverage
- Meat sauce
- Portabella mushroom strips — layer them like they were noodles
- Cheese
Repeat until you run out of room in the pan, or run out of ingredients for the layers, but be sure you finish with pasta on top. Brush a little olive oil on top of the final pasta layer, then cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour.
After an hour, remove the foil and add a top layer of shredded mozzarella or pizza cheese. Switch the oven to broil and put the lasagna back in, uncovered, just long enough for the final cheese layer to brown. You want it to look like a perfectly done pizza (see the picture above for the way I like it to end up).
Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.
