Releasing Your Inner Italian

Making a basic lasagna is a lot easier than one might imagine and, one of the best things about lasagna, besides it’s being an extreme comfort food? It can be assembled a day or two ahead of time, popped in the oven and, within the hour, you’ll be eating something hardy!

Don’t be intimidated, there are just a couple of hurdles that need to be jumped to get a well made meal. Don’t worry, we’ll point out the usual suspects of improperly made lasagna, and how to compensate for them.

BUT, the best thing about lasagna, is that it’s completely customizable… that’s right people, customizable. Start with the below basic recipe:

1-2 jars of pasta sauce (depending on how saucy you like your lasagna)
1 box of lasagna noodles
15 oz container of ricotta
16 oz mozzarella
6-8 oz parmesan
1-3 eggs (see notes on cheese mixture)
2 tsp. Italian seasonings (more or less to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Parboil your lasagna noodles- This, dear readers is one of the steps that can lead to a potentially eh, sort of lasagna. Here’s what we do to ensure that our noodles are cooked al dente in the finished meal.

• throw your noodles in some boiling water with a touch of olive oil and some salt.

• cook the noodles for about 5-7 minutes. You will know they’re done when you take the noodle from the water, and it is just under al dente (go ahead, take one out, try a bite, if you can sink your teeth in, but it’s not quite palatable enough to digest, this is what you’re looking for)

• rinse your noodles under cold water. This is done for two reasons, 1) it stops the cooking process, and 2) it makes it much easier to handle the noodles when they’re cold.

• Put your noodles back in the cooking pot, mixed with a little more olive oil to prevent sticking together.

The cheese mixture is another step that might cause a little apprehension, see below to get YOUR perfect cheese mixture consistency.

• To make the cheese mixture a little less firm, and more cheesy, remove an egg, to make it more firm, add another. (This seems counter intuitive since prior to baking the mixture will seem looser with that extra egg, but after baking, the proteins in the egg, will actually firm the cheese mixture up).

Mix ricotta, 8 oz mozzarella, 3 oz of parmesan, egg(s), and seasonings together in a bowl.


Coat the bottom of a 9 x 13 in pan with pasta sauce (enough to fully cover the bottom of the pan. You don’t want a THICK layer, but enough that when the dish is cooking, the noodles can pick up some of the sauce moisture, and finish cooking.



Lay the semi cooked lasagna noodles in the pan to cover the sauce. Spread ½ of the cheese mixture over the noodles. Cover the cheese mixture with sauce (don't be too stingy, remember, your noodles are getting moisture from the sauce to finish their cooking. If you don't have enough sauce, your lasagna may end up dry), and sprinkle 1/3 of the remaining mozzarella over the sauce.

Repeat the layering of noodles, cheese mixture, sauce and cheese.

The final layer will be a layer of noodles, a layer of sauce, and the remaining mozzarella and parmesan.

Once you’ve built your lasagna, cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil at 30 minutes, and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to brown.

Before hacking into the pan, let it sit for about 15 more minutes (it’s a hard wait…). The resting period allows the cheeses to firm up a bit, and make for easier cutting.

So now that you have the basic recipe, start having fun with it. Again, work through the fear, and experiment.

- Use some thawed frozen chopped spinach (make sure it’s well drained. To do this, take a nice handful of the frozen stuff, place it in a colander, run a bit of water over it, to start the thawing process, and walk away. After about 5 minutes, come back and push on the spinach, this will help push through that extra moisture). Add this to the cheese mixture.

- Pre-roast some veggies and toss some chunks in, between the cheese mixture layer, and the cheese layer.

- Play around with different cheeses. For example, Wendi’s favorite lasagna is comprised of the following: ricotta, small curd cottage cheese, goat cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella and parmesan, all combined with Italian seasonings for the cheese mixture. For the cheese layers, mozzarella, parmesan, and super sharp cheddar.

- If you’re a meat eater, throw in some pre cooked ground meats, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, lamb, sausage…

- Try adding alternate spices to give the lasagna a different feel, throw in some cumin, some chili powder, hot pepper flakes, garlic (fresh or roasted).

- Experiment with different sauces. Use an Alfredo if you really want some cheese!! Doctor up the jars of tomato sauce from the store, or make your own.

- Instead of making a pan of lasagna, roll the cheese mixture, and some shredded cheese into individual rolls.

Lasagna could easily become your ‘signature’ dish… write us and tell us your favorite lasagna variations! Happy cooking, and even happier eating!