Along with pizza and pasta, lasagna is one of the most popular Italian dishes. It comes in different types, with meat, vegetarian, or even seafood, but all of them with a thing in common: all the layers are marked by the lasagna noodles.
If you want to do it properly, you can try a lasagna recipe with homemade pasta. But if you don’t have the time or a pasta machine, or if you simply think you don’t have the skills (but it’s easier than you think, I promise), you can try with precooked noodles, that you can find in any supermarket.
This one below is a classic lasagna recipe: lasagna with minced beef. Ingredients for four people:
- 2 tbsp olive oil plus extra for greasing
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 celery stick, diced
- 400g / 14 oz minced beef
- 500 g/ 1 lb 2 oz canned tomato purée
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 600 ml/ 1 pint béchamel sauce
- 12 lasagna noodles ready to use without precooking
- 300 g / 11 oz mozzarella, thinly sliced
- 50 g/ 1 ¾ oz grated Parmesan
- salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat the oven to 200°C / 390°F / gas mark 6 and grease a rectangular baking dish. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion, garlic, carrots and celery, then add the mince and brown it, stirring often.
When the meat has browned, mix in the tomatoes, season with salt, pepper and oregano, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Heat the béchamel sauce and cover the base with the baking dish with a thin layer of it. Alternate a layer of lasagna noodles with a layer of meat sauce, then mozzarella slices, followed by lasagna noodles and béchamel sauce until all the ingredients have been used.
Finally cover the top of the lasagna with béchamel sauce and splrinkle with Parmesan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Wait 5 minutes before cutting the lasagna.
photo credit: bhamsandwich