Lasagna recipes

The most known lasagna recipes are those with tomato and besciamella sauce. But considering that lasagna is only another shape of pasta and so, it also matches with an infinity of seasonings. Other than this main one you can find it “white” (with no tomato), with pesto, artichokes and so on.

Since some years ago, Italian housewives used to make the pasta for lasagne at home. Nowadays they buy it and think about the seasoning.

Even in the small centers the old women buy industrialized lasagna sheets, as they too have less time to dedicate to both making the pasta and seasonings. If you read the instructions in a lasagne pasta box, you’ll see that most of them say that it needs no boiling before cooking. It should be the new advantage, as you’re only asked to ask your favourite seasoning.

But the old women know the tricks… it will come much better if you put water to boil in a big pan, add a thread of oil (to avoid attaching the sheets one with another) and salt. Then immerse the lasagne sheets for a minute into the boiling water, take them out and put on a dish cloth, separated one from another.

What you’ll need (for 4 people):

• 2 recipes of tomato sauce with meat

• ½ liter of besciamella sauce

• 2 Italian mozzarella (total 200 gr)

• about 100gr of grated Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano

How to do it:

First of all, prepare the tomato with meat sauce and the besciamella sauce. Pre-heat your oven to about 200°C. Take a large pan that can be put into the oven and put some tomato sauce for first. Then add some lasagne sheets, taking care of putting them aside, not one over the other. Then add a layer of tomato sauce, one of besciamella sauce, spread some pieces of mozzarella and grated Grana Padano. Another layer beginning with lasagne sheets, then the same until you reach a centimeter under the border of the pan, finishing with the cheese.

Put it into the pre-heated oven and let it cook for about 30/40 minutes, until it looks a little bit crispy on the borders.

Tip 1: when you spread the besciamella don’t be afraid of mixing it too much with tomato sauce. It may become a less red sauce, but no problem, the results will be wonderful.

Tip 2: take it out of the oven and it’d be good to “let it rest” for a while (half an hour is enough). This “rest” will “tie” the pasta with the seasoning, avoiding it dismantling while being cut. This values to all lasagna recipes.

Variation: If you're veggie or prefer not to eat meat, you can use tomato sauce or season it exchanging the tomato with meat sauce with pesto sauce , keeping the other ingredients and directions the same.

Buon appetito! Enjoy!