Cozy Homemade Lasagna from Scratch
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Italian, Pasta
- Cuisine: Dinner
Description
Happy Sunday! Hope you all had a great Christmas (or Friday 🤷🏻♀️). I don’t really do much for Christmas, to be honest. I like the food traditions and occasionally the hokey Christmas movie, but that’s about it. My husband and I don’t swap gifts, and my son has gotten to the age where he doesn’t see the point in wrapping gifts if he’s getting what he asked for. And, this year was a bit light considering I’m not working.
We hunkered in at home and played Risk. We love playing the Lord of the Rings version. The game continued into Boxing Day, and we started to rewatch the Lord of the Ring movies. That was purely coincidence! We aren’t that geeky!
Christmas Eve we had prime rib, a tradition my husband and I formed many years ago… it’s usually just the two of us on Christmas Eve, but with the pandemic, my son was with us this year. It went from warm and rainy to blue skies and freezing! So today is the perfect day for lasagna!
Lasagna is a rare and special meal in our house because it’s a labor of love, and it’s almost always for Sunday dinner. It takes time because I make it from scratch… every once in a while, I will make everything from scratch, including the noodles. Normally, however, I prefer to get the oven-ready lasagna noodles. It just makes that part of the recipe so much easier!
All though this takes a lot of time, for the most part, it’s hands free. Just like my homemade spaghetti, the base of the sauce comes from roasting a tray full of tomatoes, garlic, and fresh herbs. Meanwhile, on the stovetop, the sautéed onions and cooked ground meat simmers in a red wine sauce mixed with a can of diced tomatoes. Right before the tomatoes finish roasting, I make a béchamel sauce using a roux, milk, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
I make four layers of noodles! Make sure to read the cooking time for your oven-ready noodles. One time I made my lasagna with noodles I hadn’t used before, and the noodles were still quite al dente. I like Barilla or Ronzoni. Both seem to cook correctly and based on the time suggested in this recipe. You do not want to have things cooking for 2 hours only for the noodles to not be done!
This is great with a Caesar salad… and if you want more carbs, some fresh crusty bread is always delicious!
Enjoy!
Ingredients
16 oz ready-bake lasagna noodles (I prefer Barilla or Ronzoni)
grated Parmesan
Meat Sauce
15 large vine-ripened tomatoes, halved
12 garlic cloves
large handful of fresh basil
2 TBs fresh oregano
salt and pepper
1 large sweet onion, chopped
1½ lbs meatloaf mix (ground veal, ground pork, ground beef)
1 – 14 oz can diced tomatoes
2 cups Cabernet Sauvignon
2 TBs balsamic vinegar
2 TBs fresh thyme
2 TBs olive oil
Béchamel Sauce
3 TBs butter
⅓ cup flour
3 cups milk, warmed
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt and pepper
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Instructions
Make the Meat Sauce
Preheat the oven to 350°F
Spread the tomatoes cut side up across a baking sheet. Lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss on the garlic, basil, and oregano. Bake for 1½ hours. Remove and process in a blender until smooth.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add in the onion and cook 5 minutes, stirring often. Add in the ground meat, break it up with a wooden spoon, cooking until most of the pink is gone. Scoop the meat and onions into a colander and shake off the access grease. Return to the sauce pan and add the tomatoes, red wine, balsamic vinegar, and fresh thyme. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the oven roasted tomatoes are done roasting. After processing the oven roasted tomatoes, add them to the meat sauce.
Make the Béchamel Sauce
Raise the oven temperature to 400°F
In a large pot, melt the butter. Add in the flour and whisk to thoroughly saturate it. Let the roux cook for 1 minute, stirring often. Slowly add in the milk, whisking constantly. Once the milk thickens slightly, add in the grated Parmesan. Add in a pinch of nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Cook until the sauce has thickened.
Assemble the Lasagna
With a ladle, spoon two ladle worths of sauce onto the bottom of a baking dish about 10” by 15” by 2”, spreading the sauce evenly to fully cover the bottom. Add lasagna to cover the bottom without overlapping. Add another two to three ladles of sauce then drizzle over the béchamel sauce. Repeat until you have 4 layers of noodles. Top with the remaining sauce and béchamel sauce and sprinkle generously with grated Parmesan cheese.
Bake for about 30 minutes or according to the lasagna box.
Remove and let stand 5 to 10 minutes before cutting and serving.
Enjoy!
Keywords: lasagna, homemade lasagna, lasagna from scratch, lasagna with a ragu sauce
