Italian Lasagna Recipes

Italian lasagna recipes that can be prepared at home. Italian lasagna recipes such as baked or beef lasagna are still the main dishes ate on Italian holidays.

The best known ones are those with homemade tomato sauce and bechamel sauce.

Considering that it is only another shape of basic pasta; it is suited to infinity of seasonings. Other than the beef lasagna, you will find vegetarian recipes with white pasta sauce (with no tomato), with pesto, artichokes and so on.

Many years ago, Italian housewives used to prepare the pasta dough fot their Italian lasagna recipes at home. Nowadays they buy it and prepare only its sauce at home.

Italian lasagna recipes 1

Even in small centers, the old women buy industrialized pasta sheets, as they have less time to dedicate to both making the pasta and seasoning it. The differences on Italian lasagna recipes are regarding their dressing, not the dough.

There are many different pasta brands sold worldwide. The important thing to notice is that it has to be done with durum wheat to resist cooking without becoming too soft.

If you read the instructions on the pasta box, you'll see that most of them say that it needs no boiling before cooking.  It should be a great advantage, as you're only instructed to add your favorite seasoning.

But the old women know the trick... your dish will turn out much better if the sheets are placed into salted boiling water for a minute or less. (Adding some oil to the water will prevent the sheets attaching to one another). Take them out and place on a dish cloth, separated one from another. Use them as usual. You can prepare all Italian lasagna recipes with these sheets.

lasagna recipe - sheets of dough

What you'll need (for 4 people):

How to preparethe most classic amongst Italian lasagna recipes:
First of all, prepare the Italian tomato sauce recipe with meat and the besciamella sauce. Pre-heat your oven to about 200°C/392°F. Use a large oven-proof pan and put some of the tomato sauce in it. Then add some pasta sheets, taking care to place them next to each other, not one over another. Then proceed, adding a layer of tomato sauce, one of besciamella sauce and sprinkling over it some pieces of mozzarella and grated Grana Padano.

Repeat these layers, beginning with pasta sheets, until you reach about a centimeter below the rim of the pan, finishing with the cheese.

lasagna pan

Place into the pre-heated oven and allow to bake for about 30/40 minutes, until it becomes crispy on top.

Italian lasagna recipes are good to eat immediately, but also very tasty eaten the day after. So, you will never have left overs!

Tip 1: when you spread the besciamella, don't be afraid of mixing it with tomato sauce. It may become a less red sauce, but the result will still be wonderful.

Tip 2: remove from the oven and "let it rest" for a while (15 minutes are enough). This standing period will "tie" the pasta with the seasoning, preventing your lasagna from separating while being cut.

Vegetable lasagna recipe:


If you're a vegetarian and prefer not to eat meat, you can use tomato sauce recipe or pesto sauce to season it, instead of tomato and meat sauce, keeping the other ingredients and directions the same. Or prepare a zucchini lasagna to a complete dish.
Buon appetito! Enjoy!

vegetarian lasagna


More Italian Pasta Recipes from Italian tradition:

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Try these Italian lasagna recipes I learned from Italian women here in Italy.

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