How to make a cheese sauce for lasagna
You can use the sauce straight from the fridge when ready to assemble! Cook your ground beef and stir in marinara, then let it cool down and then store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Pop it into the oven straight from the fridge! You can also make your sauce ahead of time, which will still save you a bit of time. You can fully assemble the lasagna and refrigerate for up to 2 days ahead of time. If you don't want or have room to freeze you have a couple other options for prepping your lasagna ahead of time. It may need some extra time in the oven! You can also thaw it out in the fridge the night before you plan to bake. When you are ready to bake, unwrap, top with cheese, cover back with foil, and bake as directed. It will keep up to 3 months in the freezer. Assemble it fully (I like to wait to put the very last layer of cheese on until ready to bake) and then wrap up tightly in plastic wrap and foil and freeze. The whole dang thing! The best part about lasagna is how beautifully it freezes. Instead, let it cool down naturally and allow for all the cheese and sauce to set a touch before digging in. When you overbake the pasta, you run the risk of the noodles drying out and getting too crispy. Even though it might look like a cheesy, bubbly mess in the oven, if it's warmed all the way through it will be perfect once you let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Lasagna is one of those dishes that firms up a lot as it sets. Make sure to season it generously with salt and pepper-Parm, too! Other families swear by a little freshly grated nutmeg. The ricotta mixture always gets overlooked and, therefore, tastes kinda bland. My Italian grandmother always added a secret ingredient to her lasagna: cinnamon. Too much fat may lead to messier layers that slide apart once cut! Sometimes we're a little lazy and skip this step when making a meat sauce and we always regret it-the sauce tastes so greasy! Draining the fat from the skillet is a must for your lasagna layers, which will already have a lot of fat from cheese. Spending a couple more bucks on your favorite brand is worth it in this case. Even though there are tons of layers and flavors in lasagna, the sauce is the backbone of the dish. We decided to go with store-bought marinara for this recipe but it doesn't mean you should pick any old jar off the shelf. Or, if you'd prefer, sandwich them between layers of plastic wrap, which will make for a much easier peel later. To prevent this, after you drain the noodles from the pasta pot, slick them with olive oil and lay them flat on a baking sheet to cool. While you're making your beef and ricotta mixtures, your lasagna noodles will typically be hanging out in a colander, getting stuck together (worst nightmare). Make sure to cook them until they're very al dente in the boiling stage: They're ready typically 2 to 4 minutes before the amount of time on the box! Don't listen to the box of lies and look instead for the thin white line in the middle of your noodle when you go in to take a little test nibble. Lasagna noodles need structure, especially because they have a lot of ingredients layered between them! You don't want to make 'em too mushy, which can be easy to do accidentally because they're cooked twice: once in the boiling water, and once in the oven. Regardless of the route you choose to go down, make sure to follow these tips-We've reworked this recipe based on user comments to make it even better with more meat, more sauce, and more cheese! If that's the case for you, try out our best homemade spaghetti sauce-simple in ingredients and rich in flavor, it'll never let you down. We think it's absolutely perfect as-is, but also understand some people are looking to make sauce from scratch. It saves a ton of time without sacrificing any flavor. for 30 minutes or until the lasagna is hot. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.We took a couple shortcuts for this recipe by using store-bought marinara and boxed pasta sheets. Top with the remaining 4 lasagna noodles, remaining beef mixture and the remaining Parmesan cheese.īake at 400☏. Top with 4 lasagna noodles, half the ricotta cheese mixture and half the mozzarella. Spoon 2 cups beef mixture into a 13x9x2-inch baking dish. In a 3-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, cook the beef until it's well browned, stirring often to break up the meat. Stir the ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and eggs in a medium bowl and set it aside. Uncover, then bake for 15 minutes or until hot. Assemble the lasagna as directed, then cover the baking dish. To simplify the prep, you can use uncooked lasagna noodles in this recipe.Enjoy one right away and freeze the other for later. Use two 11x8x2-inch baking dishes and divide the beef mixture, noodles, cheese mixture and cheese between them. You can also follow this recipe to make 2 smaller lasagnas instead of 1 large.