Number One Best Lasagna

Photo Courtesy of Brad Lovejoy

We have a new tradition of watching Thursday night football at Carl's house so this week, I decided to make a good old-fashioned meat lasagna to take along. I only give the gift of non-vegetarian lasagna to my family about once a year so this is practically monumental. I also tossed my all-organic ingredient rule aside in favor of a hybrid list of ingredients. I purchased basic lasagna products such as Frigo Mozzarella and Ricotta, Barilla lasagna noodles, San Marzano tomatoes, Jennie-O ground turkey and Hunt's tomato paste. The Italian Sausage, Parmesan and whole nutmeg are natural products; the garlic, parsley and onion are organic; the basil is from my garden but all other products are mainstream.

Photo Courtesy of Brad Lovejoy

I found this recipe online and chose it for two reasons. First of all, I found it on a site called mylasagnarecipe.com. This website is all about lasagna and this is the recipe they have deemed to be their number one. How could I pass it up? I also made this choice because the recipe has received rave reviews from multiple readers. I am always pleased when a recipe website provides readers a place to post their thoughts on a particular recipe, along with their results. It helps me weed out most of the duds. The recipe follows:

Ingredients:

1 pound of sweet Italian sausage

1 pound of ground beef (I used 97/3 ground turkey since we don't eat beef)

1/2 cup of chopped onions

2 cloves of garlic chopped

1 (28 ounce) can of crushed tomatoes

2 (8 ounce) cans of tomato sauce

2 (6 ounce) cans of tomato paste

1/2 Cup of Water

2 tablespoons

white sugar

1 teaspoon fennel seed

2 teaspoons fresh Basil leaves chopped

4 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

23 ounces of ricotta cheese

1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

1 egg

1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

12 lasagna noodles

Add ground turkey, Italian sausage, onion and garlic to dutch oven pot. Brown meat mixture over low-medium heat. This takes 6-9 minutes. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste and water. Stir ingredients together. Then add Italian seasoning, salt, ground pepper, fennel seed, white sugar, two tablespoons chopped parsley and basil. Gently stir to combine. Simmer for one hour and thirty minutes. If you don't have this amount of time, an hour will still work great.

In mixing bowl, combine ricotta, fresh ground nutmeg, egg and two tablespoons parsley. Stir together.

To layer lasagna, first spread 2 cups meat sauce over bottom of 9" X 13" pan. Layer noodles (should take about 6) over sauce and spread half of ricotta mixture over noodles. Sprinkle half of mozzarella over ricotta layer and half of Parmesan over mozzarella. Spread 2 cups sauce over cheese and then one more layer of noodles. Spread remaining ricotta over noodles, mozzarella and Parmesan over ricotta, leaving a bit of each to sprinkle on top, and last layer of sauce on cheeses. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake for additional 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Serves 12.

This was my most enjoyable cooking experience of the past few months and the lasagna was delicious! The kicker is that there could not be a lasagna recipe that is more suited to Brad's palate. He, Carl and Olivia absolutely loved the final product. From where I sit, other than subbing ground turkey for ground beef (since we don't eat beef), there is only one change that would make it better. I usually prefer to use Barilla flat lasagna sheets that require no boiling prior to layering. For this recipe however, I do believe Barilla lasagna noodles with crinkled edges would work better. This recipe produces an ample amount of meat sauce and in order to support and balance the sauce, thicker noodles would be ideal. Other than this one change, I would leave well enough alone. The author of this recipe really has meat lasagna dialed in.

A few final comments. This was the first time I have cooked a recipe that calls for grated whole nutmeg. I must say, I cannot believe the difference in flavor between ground nutmeg and grated whole nutmeg. I read an article today about how nutmeg loses oil once it is grated and this is the reason fresh nutmeg tastes so much better. Makes sense to me. I snapped a photo for those of you that are not familiar with the appearance of nutmeg. I am now excited to use it in a freshly grated form for my fall recipes and especially for eggnog. It smells heavenly and the flavor is gorgeous.

Finally, although this recipe was a bit time consuming and labor intensive, I would like to recommend making lasagna sauce from scratch when time is not an issue. I have prepared pasta sauce from scratch several times and there is nothing that compares. Although this recipe did not require blanching, peeling and cooking tomatoes down for the sauce, it still delivered a homemade quality product. There is simply nothing like homemade sauce. Enjoy!

Recipe Source:

mylasagnarecipe.com