Roll up your sleeves and grab that apron and make a lasagna that’s truly worth the effort. This isn’t just any lasagna; it’s the perfect work of love featuring homemade bolognese and layers upon layers of cheese, all nestled between sheets of perfectly tender pasta that you didn’t have to boil. Bonus, it’ll have your house smelling amazing for hours! It’s the dish that’ll have the whole family buzzing with anticipation from the moment the sausage hits the pan.
Craving the flavors, but need your fix faster? Check out our lasagna soup or our viral lasagna stuffed chicken breast! For a lighter option, go noodle-free with zucchini lasagna!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- A decadent bolognese sauce made from scratch brings the best tomato flavor.
- Ricotta cheese is used over the traditional bechamel to add a creamy texture that maintains the same classic flavor.
- Can be prepared ahead of time for minimal day-of effort.
- We use a special pasta hack that gives you the best pasta texture without the extra hassle of boiling.
This is the kind of lasagna people write home about! It brings together all of the things we love in a good pasta dish: noodles, cheeses, fresh herbs and a delicious meat sauce. If you’ve never made lasagna before or haven’t found a good recipe, you have come to the right place. Invite a friend because you won’t want to keep this dish to yourself!
Ingredient Notes
- Sweet Italian Sausage: Can be substituted with spicy sausage to add a mild kick, ground chicken sausage, or a plant-based ground sausage alternative.
- Ground Beef: Ground chicken, ground lamb, or a plant-based ground meat alternative can also be used.
- White Wine: Red wine or additional beef broth can be used.
- Ricotta cheese: Use whole milk ricotta cheese in this recipe for best results. Cottage cheese can be substituted in the same amount.
- Sliced mozzarella: We like to get our mozzarella sliced at the deli counter in our grocery store. (You want the slices to be pretty thin, 24 slices is the ideal amount and it should equal somewhere around one pound.)
- Freshly grated Parmesan cheese: Don’t use the canned stuff! It doesn’t melt the same as real, freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
- Sugar: Added to balance the acidity of the tomato. 1 cup of finely diced carrots be used as a substitute. Add the carrots in with the onions to saute.
- Tomato Paste: Two cans of tomato paste are used in this recipe. It may seem like a lot, but tomato paste has a super concentrated tomato flavor. By adding in so much, we’re able to get a deep tomato flavor, without adding too much liquid to the sauce.
- Fennel Seeds: A common flavor used in Italian-style sausages. Additional fennel seeds enhances that meaty flavor from the sausage.
Tomato Paste Can Hack
Canned tomato paste is the best value, but can be annoying to use. If you open a tomato paste can from both ends, you can use one of the lids to push the paste through the other side of the can, which is so much easier than scraping it out with a spoon!
Lasagna Pasta Shortcut
Boiling lasagna pasta sheets is an extra step that we would all love to avoid. No boil lasagna pasta sheets, in our opinion, have an unpleasant texture and often turn out soggy. Here is a hack to skip the boil and make perfect pasta every time: All you have to do is place regular lasagna pasta sheets in a container, like a 9 x 13 pan, and pour hot water over them. Let them soak for 30 minutes and they’ll be tender enough to use in the recipe. Don’t worry, they will finish cooking in the oven.
Serving Suggestions
To turn your lasagna into a complete and satisfying meal, consider these classic pairings:
- Garlic Bread: Serve your lasagna with a side of warm, buttery garlic bread. The crispiness of the bread complements the soft layers of lasagna, and it’s perfect for mopping up any leftover sauce on the plate.
- Fresh Salad: Balance the richness of the lasagna with a light, refreshing salad. A simple mixed greens salad or a classic Caesar salad adds a crisp, fresh element to your meal, offering a contrast in flavors and textures.
- Tiramisu: Conclude your meal with a serving of tiramisu. This classic Italian dessert, with its layers of coffee-soaked ladyfingers and mascarpone cheese, offers a sweet and indulgent end to your dining experience.
Troubleshooting
- Soggy Noodles: If your noodles seem too soft or the lasagna is too watery, extend the baking time slightly to help evaporate some of the excess moisture.
- Too Dry: If the lasagna looks dry or the edges are crisping too much, cover with aluminum foil during baking to retain moisture. You can also add a bit more sauce on top before returning it to the oven for a few minutes.
- Cheese Burning: If the cheese on top starts to burn, place a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the lasagna for the remainder of the baking time.
- Not Heating Through: If the center isn’t hot after the recommended baking time, cover with foil and bake for an additional 10-20 minutes. Check the temperature in the center with a food thermometer to ensure it’s reached 165°F.
- Layers Sliding Off: If the layers slide off when cutting, let the lasagna rest for 10-15 minutes after baking. This resting period allows it to set and makes it easier to cut.
Make Ahead Instructions
- Assemble: Build your lasagna but don’t bake it. Ensure ingredients are cool to prevent sogginess.
- Wrap: Tightly cover with plastic wrap and foil. Refrigerate up to 48 hours or freeze for longer storage.
- Bake: Remove wrapping and bake as directed, adding extra time if chilled or frozen.
Storage and Reheating Instructions
- Refrigeration: Store leftovers in the fridge for up to 5 days. Reheat in the oven or microwave until warm.
Freezing Instructions
- For Freezing: Let lasagna cool to room temperature to avoid sogginess. Cover well to prevent freezer burn from air and freeze for up to 1 month.
- For Unbaked Lasagna: Assemble, skip baking, cover in a freezer-safe dish, and freeze.
Thawing and Reheating
- Thawing: Defrost in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
- Reheating Baked: Remove wrap, cover with foil, bake at 375°F for about 30 minutes, then uncover and bake until bubbly.
- Baking Unbaked: Bake covered at 375°F for 60 minutes, then uncover and bake until golden.
Try these lasagna recipes for a fun twist on the dish!
White Spinach Artichoke Lasagna
1 hr 20 mins
Classic Eggplant Lasagna
1 hr 20 mins
Buffalo Chicken Lasagna
1 hr 35 mins
Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, Facebook Watch, or our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
I’ve made the lasagna twice and agree with everyone else…it’s the BEST. I’ve also now made 4 batches of the Bolognese sauce by itself using our bumper crop of fresh tomatoes and herbs from the garden instead of the canned (though I kept the paste in there!) and froze it in freezer bags for future use. So far we’ve used it as a stand-alone spaghetti sauce, and as a base for a very tomato-ey chili (Carnivore’s delight!) but my favourite “off-label” use so far is as the base for a delicious Shepherd’s Pie (well, technically more of a Cottage Pie, given the beef base). I just threw the frozen sauce (about 600-700g volume) into an 8x8x2 1/2 inch pyrex dish, mixed in some cooked and chopped carrots, some leftover corn off the cob and some frozen peas, then spread leftover mashed potatoes on top, sprinkled with some parmesan flakes and baked for around 35- 40 minutes. It was de-lish (and,as is so often the case, even better the second day). A great way to use up leftover veges. Thanks for what has now become one of my “fundamental” receipes!
Delicious,! My husband absolutely loves this meat sauce! We eat it with angel hair pasta, zoodles and now we are going to use it with gnocchi! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe??
This lasagna looks to die for!! Would this recipe work well with béchamel sauce instead of the ricotta mixture?
Yes it will!
I had a dinner party tonight and made your lasagna. Everyone went for seconds and said it was fabulous! I cooked the sauce uncovered for 4 hours. After 3 hours the sauce was getting pretty thick (I had my gas burner on the lowest setting and it was a small burner) so I added a 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes (I blended them with my immersion blender). Other than that, I followed your recipe exactly. Delicious! Your video was great and helped a lot! Thank you! I give it 5 stars and will definitely make it again!
Where did you get your extra deep 9×13 dish?
I have several casserole dished but none are deep enough.
They sell them most places where kitchenware is sold. You can always order one online if that’s more convenient.
I got mine from Corning ware
Easily better than any restaurant lasagna. My family loves it
I have made this recipe twice in the last week because it was such a hit! We had a small dinner party and I had never made lasagna before so the fact that there was a video made this so much more manageable as a first-timer. I learned a couple of tricks the first time which made the second time much better. Pro Tips:
– Standard 9x13s are not quite deep enough, although I still used mine, but put a cookie sheet under it in the oven so when it baked over a little, it would catch instead of burn at the bottom of the oven
– You could also just use the 9×13 throw-away tin versions from the store – plenty deep and easy clean-up!
– It’s important to break up the meat nice and small so it spreads more evenly than with lumps
– It’s important to use sliced mozzarella over shredded because it also makes it easier to spread the meat sauce/ricotta over it without picking up the shredded mozzarella – the smooth slices are perfect. I also noticed that 1 lb of mozzarella wasn’t clear enough on the recipe- you will need about 24 standard slices, or 18 extra wide slices – it takes about 6 regular slices a layer so you can do the math.
– To give it a slightly spicy level I used spicy sausage and it was great! Not too spicy!
– I also used regular spaghetti sauce I had in a jar (in the correct amount in the recipe) instead of buying plain tomato sauce in a can per the recipe and it still tasted great! (I used Prego’s garlic mushroom pasta sauce)
– Simmering the meat sauce for 1.5-2 hours was ideal to minimize the liquid in the sauce and bring out the rich flavor
Boyfriend took the second lasagna on a cabin bachelor party and they LOVED it. Totally worth making! Thanks so much for sharing AND making a video! 🙂
The best lasagna ever, would highly recommend making and is even better the next day. I’ve made it a few times and it’s my go to lasagna!!
You’re right! This is amazing!
My parents were Italians who grew up in Brooklyn, NY. When they married in 1949, my mom, who lost her own mom young, moved with my dad to East NY, where a tiny old woman with a heavy Italian accent took her under her wing and taught her everything. My mother’s lasagna was and is still to just die for. This recipe is so close to hers. She didn’t use chicken broth or canned sauce, but did use the same amount of paste, then more canned tomatoes. The lasagna here is so yummy. Amazing. The only thing I won’t change is, my mom made about a million tiny homemade meatballs, then fried them up. She’d break them up in the layers and the taste is incomparable to anything else. It is just so exhausting and labor intensive. But this is the closest thing to her truly special lasagna. Thank you for this recipe. It is indeed delicious!
My mother used to do that too! I always tried to find a recipe that called for that but never have.