Lasagna is really easy, and is also a really easy dish to make minor adaptations to. I decided that I wanted to make lasagna but that I also wanted to make a twist on the lasagna mom taught me to make as a child.
There are basically 4 critical components to classic lasagna
-noodles – lasagna
-meat – ground beef
-sauce – tomato sauce
-cheese – ricotta or cottage
I still used the lasagna noodles but I replaced the ground beef with spicy italian sausage, the tomato sauce with italian stewed tomatoes (canned store brand) and in addition to the cottage cheese I added some mozarella.
Here’s the basic cooking process
1) Start big pot of water to boiling with a little bit of oil. Add noodles. Allow boil until noodles are soft.
2) Brown meat in a frying pan.
3) Add a bit of olive oil (or other oil is fine) to a pot. Place sauce (or tomatoes) into a pot and allow to warm (don’t turn on high or you’ll have a kitchen covered with tomatoes). Put any flavors into sauce that you would like to add. Since I wanted spicy, I added red pepper flakes and garlic salt and was generous.
4) when meat is brown, add to sauce mixture.
5) Grease a baking pan with oil or Pam. Layer in the following fashion:
sauce, cheese, noodles, sauce, cheese, noodles until pan is full or your run out of ingredients. make sure you cover the top with shredded cheese.
Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
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edits: I felt like mine needed something crunchy, so I’m thinking I’ll probably add a veggie next time. Probably something like spinach should do the trick – crunchy but not overpowering.
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