The Best Lasagna You'll Ever Make

Who doesn't love lasagna? Whether from your favorite Italian restaurant, frozen or store bought, it's always such a warm and comforting meal. But have you ever tried to make it yourself? If you haven't, you totally need to! It's definitely not as hard or intimidating as it is made out to be. This lasagna recipe is crazy easy to follow, especially if you're making lasagna for the first time.

Ingredients for lasagna sauce

To start this lasagna, the first thing you're going to want to do is make the sauce. Here's everything you'll need for this step!

• Ground beef

• Ground sausage

• White onion

• Garlic

• Crushed tomatoes

• Tomato sauce + tomato paste

• Dried basil + dried oregano

• Salt + pepper

Making the sauce

Make the sauce ahead of time. This sauce can be made up to 3 days in advance. Allow finished sauce to cool. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. You can just pull it right out of the fridge to use when it's time to assemble your lasagna.

Customize your sauce. You can absolutely use any type of ground sausage to fit your liking. Don't like any spice? Use sweet Italian sausage. Like it hot? You can definitely use hot ground sausage instead.

Other lasagna ingredients

Now that we've got the sauce covered, now it's time to grab everything else you need to assemble the lasagna. Here are the rest of the ingredients you'll need.

• Ricotta cheese

• Egg

• Parsley

• Salt + pepper

• Lasagna noodles

• Mozzarella + parmesan cheese

Lasagna noodles

You can use whatever lasagna noodles you'd like for this recipe. Need to use gluten-free lasagna noodles? Maybe you prefer using oven-ready noodles? No problem!  Personally, my go-to noodles are Barilla Wavy Lasagna noodles. But honestly, any lasagna noodle of your choice will work! 

Assembling the lasagna

I've heard that I don't make lasagna the traditional way, since I only have three layers of noodles, as opposed to four. But it's totally okay to be different, right?! I think so. To assemble, here are the layers you'll use.

Layer 1- Sauce
Layer 2- Noodles
Layer 3- Ricotta mixture
Layer 4- Shredded cheese
REPEAT!

You'll end by adding the third layer on noodles, topping with more sauce, and then loading the top with tons of mozzarella and parmesan cheese.


I hope this lasagna brings you full bellies and lots of joy to your dinner table ♥

The Best Lasagna You'll Ever Make

Recipe by Chrissy

Servings

12-16

servings

Prep time

1

hour 

Cooking time

55

minutes

Total time

1

hour 

55

minutes

Ingredients

• Meat sauce

• 1lb ground beef

• 1lb ground mild Italian sausage

• 1 large white onion, diced (about 1 ½ cups)

• 5 large garlic cloves, minced

• 1- 28oz can crushed tomatoes

• 1- 15oz can tomato sauce

• 6 tablespoons tomato paste

• 1 ½ tablespoons dried basil

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

• ½ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste

• Ricotta mixture

• 16oz ricotta cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

• 1 egg

• Salt & pepper, to taste

• Other ingredients

• 12 lasagna noodles

• 2 ½ cups mozzarella cheese

• 1 ¼ cups parmesan cheese

Directions

• In a large pot or dutch oven, add ground beef, ground sausage, diced onions, and garlic. Cook until meet is completely browned. Ince cooked, drain fat and return pan to stove.
• Add in the rest of the sauce ingredients to the pot. Stir well. Cover, and cook on a medium temperature for 35-40 minutes. Stir occasionally. Your sauce is now done.
• If you are using lasagna noodles that need to be cooked, cook them according to the package instruction. If you're using oven-ready noodles, go to the next step.
• In a medium bowl, mix all of the ingredients for ricotta mixture together. Now you're ready to assemble the lasagna.
• Grease a 13x9 baking dish. Begin by spreading about 1 ½ cups of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan. Arrange 4 noodles on top of the meat sauce, just slightly overlapping. Spread half of the ricotta cheese mixture evenly on top of the noodles. Sprinkle ½ cup mozzarella cheese and ¼ cup parmesan cheese over the ricotta layer.
• Repeat the layers from step 5. Next, add 1 ½ cups of sauce and spread evenly. Add the remaining 4 lasagna noodles, then top with remaining sauce (it should be between 1 ½-2 cups). Top with remaining 1 ½ cups of mozzarella and ¾ cup of parmesan cheese.
• Bake covered lasagna for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, uncover, and cook for an additional 25 minutes.