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The BEST Lasagna!
The absolute best lasagna recipe -- easy to make, layered up with the most delicious flavors, and so incredibly cozy and comforting. See notes above for potential ingredient variations.
Prep
40 min
Cook
1h
Total
1h 40m
Serves
12
Instructions
- 01
Make the sauce: In a large sauté pan or stockpot, cook the sausage and onion over medium-high heat until the sausage is completely browned, crumbling it with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Add the garlic, tomato paste and crushed red pepper flakes and sauté for 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the wine, using a wooden spoon to scrape up any of the browned bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the tomatoes, roasted red peppers, oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and stir to combine. Use the wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes into small pieces as the sauce continues to cook. Once the sauce reaches a simmer, reduce heat to medium to maintain the simmer. Then let the sauce continue to simmer and reduce down for about 10-15 minutes, or until about half of the juices have evaporated. (You still want the sauce to be fairly juicy, just not overly so.) Discard bay leaf. Remove pan from heat and set aside until ready to use.
- 02
Make the cheese mixture: Meanwhile, in a separate mixing bowl, stir together the ricotta, Parmesan, basil and egg until combined.
- 03
Prep the oven and baking dish: Heat the oven to 375°F and mist a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
- 04
Assemble: Next, it's assembly time!
- 05
First layer: Spread 1.5 cups of the sauce mixture evenly along the bottom of the pan. Then add on a layer of lasagna noodles (so that the surface of the pan is covered, more or less), followed by 1/3 of the ricotta mixture (which I recommend adding in small spoonfuls, which you can then spread out into an even layer), followed by 1 cup of the shredded mozzarella.
- 06
Second layer: Evenly layer 1/3 of the remaining sauce, 1 more round of lasagna noodles, 1/2 of the remaining ricotta mixture, and 1 cup shredded mozzarella.
- 07
Third layer: Evenly layer 1/2 of the remaining sauce, 1 more round of lasagna noodles, all of the remaining ricotta mixture.
- 08
Fourth layer: Evenly layer all of the remaining sauce, 1 cup shredded mozzarella.
- 09
Bake: Loosely tent aluminum foil to cover the pan (try to avoid touching the cheese). Transfer pan to the oven and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil and bake for 15-20 more minutes, until the sauce is bubbly around the edges and the top of the cheese starts to bubble and turn golden. Transfer the pan to a wire baking rack and cool for 5 minutes.
- 10
Serve: Sprinkle with your desired toppings, slice, serve warm and enjoy!
Variations & swaps
Recipe Variations
- Guys, the options for how to customize this lasagna recipe are practically limitless. So feel free to get creative and experiment with whatever sounds best to you. For example, feel free to:
- Use a different meat: Ground beef, turkey or chicken would also be delicious in this recipe. (I just recommend adding in a tablespoon of Italian seasoning if you use any of these, to replace some of the seasonings that are usually mixed into Italian sausage.)
- Make it vegetarian: Nix the meat entirely to make vegetarian lasagna. And in its place, feel free to sauté some finely chopped veggies (such as mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, etc) instead. Just be sure to cook off any of the extra juices from the vegetables, otherwise your veggie lasagna may be too watery.
- Add veggies: Even if you are still using meat in your lasagna recipe, feel free to add some extra veggies too. I’m especially partial to chopping up a handful of baby bella mushrooms to the sauce.
- Add spinach: Just thaw a 10-ounce package of frozen chopped spinach, squeeze as much of the moisture out of the spinach as possible, then stir it into the ricotta mixture to make spinach lasagna.
- Add more fresh herbs: Feel free to add in any other fresh Italian herbs that you happen to have on hand too! Chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, or sage would all be delicious in addition to the basil in this homemade lasagna.
- Add more cheese: If you like an extra cheesy topping, feel free to double the amount of mozzarella on top. Also, feel free to add in any other cheeses that you love too. (I’m especially partial to smoked mozzarella, or a touch of crumbled goat cheese added in.)
- Make it spicy: Feel free to double or triple the amount of crushed red pepper flakes to make your lasagna recipe a bit spicy.
- Use veggie noodles: In lieu of traditional pasta lasagna noodles, feel free to very thinly slice zucchini (lengthwise) and layer them in to make zucchini lasagna. Or do the same with eggplant to make eggplant lasagna. For either recipe, you will need to drain the veggie noodles first. Just sprinkle them with salt and lay the veggie noodles out on paper towels to drain for 30 minutes. Then rinse…
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