How to Make Lasagna (Recipes Kids Should Know Before Leaving Home)
Lasagna is a great recipe to know how to cook for several reasons. First, one recipe makes a lot of food, which is great for feeding either lots of people or making sure you end up with leftovers! And as nice and easy as pasta and sauce is, lasagna takes your pasta to a whole new level of delicious. Lastly, lasagna is one of those recipes that you can really get creative with. There are all kinds of lasagna recipes out there and you can really have fun trying out different types of ingredients, from vegetables to cheeses to meats. It’s definitely a meal kids should know how to cook before leaving home.
Photo credit: Kitchen Treaty
When making lasagna you have two choices for noodles: traditional or oven-ready.
Traditional noodles require you to boil the noodles before assembling your lasagna. This is more work and takes more time, but the noodle texture is my favorite this way. However, the new oven-ready lasagna noodles on the market these days taste almost as good and are definitely worth the saved time. I used to rarely make lasagna, but now with the oven-ready noodles lasagna is one of my fast, go-to dinner recipes!
Lasagna is all about layers, layers, layers. I keep it simple and usually do three layers of noodles, with two layers of filler. But you can do more layers if you like and add even more ingredients! Lasagna is flexible and ready to do whatever you tell it to do!
The recipes below are for a simple, traditional sausage lasagna. There aren’t a lot of exact measurements – trust yourself and use the amount of ingredients that make sense as you build your layers!
If you are looking for other type of lasagna recipes, just look in cookbooks or do a quick Internet search. There are so many great recipes out there to try! Another bonus to lasagna is how easy it is to make in a vegetarian version. The Vegetarian Lasagna from Kitchen Treaty featured in the photo at the top of this post is a great classic version to try. These two recipes for Roasted Vegetable Lasagna from Sheri Silver and Portobello Kale Lasagna from Spabettie look amazing as well!
How to Make Lasagna Recipe
PrintClassic Lasagna
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients
- 1/2 package lasagna noodles
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 pound bulk Italian sausage (sweet or spicy, depending on your preference)
- 2Â jars marinara sauce (you may only need 1 jar depending on how much sauce you use)
- 15 ounces ricotta cheese
- 2 pinch salt and pepper
- 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (you will need between 2–4 cups, depending on how cheesy you like your lasagna!)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375º F.
- If using traditional lasagna noodles, follow directions for boiling the noodles as indicated on the package. If using oven-ready, no-boil lasagna noodles, move on to next step.
- Add olive oil to a large skillet and heat pan over medium heat on the stove (which would be 5 on a dial scaled 1-10) for a few minutes. Add the sausage and cook until the meat is no longer pink, stirring regularly and breaking up the sausage into crumbled pieces. Remove from heat.
- In a 9″ x 13″ casserole dish, spread a few spoonfuls of marinara sauce on the bottom of the dish.
- Place one layer of lasagna noodles on top of the sauce, then spread a few spoonfuls of ricotta cheese on top of the noodles. Sprinkle the ricotta cheese evenly with salt and pepper, then spread a handful or two of shredded mozzarella cheese over the ricotta. Add a layer of the crumbled, cooked sausage, using up half of the sausage. Drizzle several generous spoonfuls of sauce over everything. Add another layer of noodles and repeat the layers of this step (ricotta cheese, salt and pepper, mozzarella and sausage). Drizzle again with marinara sauce then add one more layer of noodles.
- Top the final layer of noodles with more marinara sauce and finish with shredded mozzarella cheese on top.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes. Carefully remove foil then bake for an additional 5-10 minutes to brown cheese slightly.
- Remove lasagna from oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 8
Find more Recipes Kids Should Know How to Make Before Leaving Home here.
