Lasagna Bolognese
Who doesn’t love layers of pasta, a variety of cheeses and a slowly simmered Bolognese sauce? Put it all together and you have a pan full of love and passion. Lasagna is the ultimate Italian comfort food. Something that you make when you have loads of time. It is the kind of dish to make while sipping some good Italian red (like a Chianti Classico, Brunello or Barolo) while playing some beautiful Andrea Bocelli music in the background.
When you go to these lengths to make a pan full of love, you might as well make a full batch. This recipe feeds 8 hungry people. When it’s a smaller group, I’ll often make it and place it in 2 separate baking pans. A couple of 8×8 square pans will do the trick. Then I’ll wrap one up nice and tight in cling wrap and then a layer of foil. That pan will go in the freezer for a future dinner.
Another shortcut I take is using Bolognese sauce from a big batch that I made some time ago and then froze the leftover sauce. Of course you could use your favorite jar of sauce, but you will never get the meatiness and depth of flavor from the onion, celery and carrots that you will when you make your own sauce. If you want to make this dish for guests, consider making the sauce the day or night before. Pop in in the fridge overnight. The flavors will be even better on day two and you’ll only have to take it out of the fridge to add to the layers of your lasagna.
Lasagna is one of those dishes that can be modified in countless ways. Just make sure to stick to having a layer of noodles, sauce and a herby cheese mixture. With winter upon us, pick a lazy Sunday to put on some Bocelli, open a bottle of lovely Italian wine and spend a few hours in the kitchen putting some love into your own version of lasagna. Your time and attention are worth it!
Lasagna Bolognese
Ingredients
For the bolognese sauce
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 ribs celery, finely diced
- 2 medium carrots, finely diced
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 6 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 pound ground pork or ground Italian sausage
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes, chopped
- 1 15 ounce can of tomato puree
- 6 ounce can of tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons dried sage leaves
- 3 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Ricotta cheese mixture
- 18 ounces fresh ricotta cheese
- 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup freshly chopped flat leaf parsley
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
Other layers
- 8-10 ounces lasagna noodles
- 1 pound mozzarella cheese, slices
- 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
Bolognese Sauce
- In a large sturdy pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.
- Add celery, carrots, onion and saute about 10 minutes. Do not brown onion.
- Add garlic to pot. Saute 1 – 2 minutes to release flavor.
- Add ground beef, pork/Italian sausage to pot. Breaking up meat into small pieces. Cook about 10 minutes until meat is no longer pink.
- Add chicken stock, crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato paste, sage, salt and pepper.
- Bring to boil and then turn heat down to a slow simmer. Simmer for about 2 hours with lid ajar.
- If sauce gets too thick, add some extra chicken stock.
Boil lasagna noodles
- In large pot with salted water, boil lasagna noodles for 8 minutes. Remove noodles from water. Toss with a bit of olive oil and set aside until time to assemble.
Ricotta mixture
- In a medium bowl, combine ricotta, parmesan, parsley and egg. Add a dash of salt and black pepper. Stir to combine.
Time to assemble dish
- In a 9 x 13 pan, layer 1/3 of the sauce on the bottom…spread sauce to cover the bottom of the dish.
- Then add the layers in the following order: Half of the pasta, half of the mozzarella, half of the ricotta and 1/3 or the sauce.
- Do another layer with the remaining pasta, mozzarella, ricotta and sauce. Top the dish with about 1/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Baking instructions
- Heat over to 350-375 degrees.
- Cover dish with foil. Place in oven for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove foil and bake an additional 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let lasagna rest for 15 minutes before cutting and serving.
Notes
- While there are many steps to this dish, you can make your sauce the day before so that the day you make it will go much faster. Of course you can used a high quality jarred marinara sauce that you can add to 2 pounds of cooked beef/pork.
- Since this makes a lot, you can use 2 (8×8) square pans to create 2 dishes. Freeze one and cook the other.
- This freezes well BEFORE baking. It will stay good for about 3 months. Remove from freezer and let sit on counter one hour to thaw out a bit. Then bake in the oven for at least one hour until heated through.
- As with any dish, taste the sauce several times to make sure it has enough salt to your liking. It’s always better to start off with a little salt and add more along the way.
