Making a lasagne from scratch

Completely agree. I am quick in the kitchen but a lasagne is way too much work. When I go out for dinner, go to a decent Italian and order their lasagne. Mine never comes out right either Too much sauce or too little and layers never stay together as they should

Do you not own a cheese grater? Grating 50g of Parmesan and 75g cheese takes 1 min tops!

Béchamel sauce takes maximum 15 mins.

Browning the mince and throwing some chopped tomatoes, tomato purée and herbs, maybe some mushrooms as well takes 10 mins and then simmer while you make the sauce.

Takes 20-30mins. I have no idea what you were doing g for 2.5 hours? Making pasta from scratch??

Oh OP, what a shame your DH is taking out his work frustrations on you and was so ungracious at your efforts. He doesn't deserve home-cooked food!

I think a lot of posts have been taking issue with an hour to make your béchamel, but clearly most of them haven't read your later posts or they'd understand what you were up against, and how upsetting it was to have your DH disrespect your work. I'm glad he was appreciative later on, but life's too short to spend hours cooking lovely stuff for someone who doesn't appreciate it. He needs to know this.

I always end up with not quite the right amounts of either the ragu or the béchamel, but then I never really follow a recipe for lasagne! If you make bolognaise sauce for pasta more often than lasagne, then next time, why not make double the amount, freeze or fridge half, and then you've got that for your next lasagne. I make the béchamel by starting with a stupid amount of butter, and then add as much plain flour as you can without it being mealy-dry. Cook it in a bit while making sure it doesn't burn, then start adding the milk slowly, and whisk like mad, and be prepared to use quite a lot of it!

Sod not adding cheddar, I like a nice cheesy lasagne and put it in as well as parmesan!

From scratch as opposed to using jar sauce

Far too late to this thread but a brilliant domestic science teacher taught me to just use flour, butter and milk from cold in a pan to make bechamel (trust your instincts on quantity) and then gently heat.

Lasagne is nice but a completely overwhelming mess from start to finish.

I don’t understand, from scratch as opposed to a microwave meal??? I assume you meant also making the pasta from scratch

Exactly this.
I try to do two huge trays at once, they divvy into 10x double portions in foil takeaway containers and freeze.

I can make a bechamel in no time but I keep this in my larder and when I make bolognese I make double and freeze, then I can make a lasagne in no time with that and this

Chef Parmalat Classic Bechamel Sauce 500g – Partridges

I was really pleased with mine. Some of the tips on here are great

I did infuse the bechamel with the cloved onion etc.

Sainsbury’s mince 5%

Make two, or even three, at a time and freeze? Hardly any more work and SO nice to have waiting for you!

What on earth are you doing to your bechamel to take that long. It takes 10 mins max - melt butter, add flour to make a roux and then whisk in the milk gradually. I don’t measure milk just add until the correct consistency. Then add cheese and combine. And with butter / flour it’s a simple equal amount of each.

Making the bolognese technically takes a long time if you want it decent as it needs time to simmer. But just leave and pop back to give a little stir. But then I think a bolognese with minimal simmer time is ok in a lasagna anyway once combined with bechamel and cheese etc.

I mentioned cheddar. I would add cheddar. I like cheddar

The only reason the Italians dont use cheddar is because they dont really have it, their hard cheese of choice is parmesan or pecorino, both are fine, both have their merits, even both at the same time.

I don't understand how bechamel took you 1 hour?! It's probably more like 15 mins or something? Melt butter, add cornflour, add milk, add cheese, stir? Hardly one hour?! Two hours would probably be from starting to gather ingredients to lasagne ready to be eaten and all pots pans etc washed and dried and put away

I love lasagne but agree it's a faff. I speed it up by using pre grated cheddar (no Parmesan) and doing an all in one bechamel. I also make double the quantity of ragu and freeze some for the next time.

I would rather go without lasagne than eat a pre made sauce so it's very much a once in a while treat not a regular family meal.

My kids used to love "dad's lasagne", and I still get requests for it when they come home (all grown up now) (I was the main cook when they were little)... but they knew it was only possible when I had the time to do it 👍

I soooo want lasagne now. My tip is 50/50 cornflour and plain flour for the sauce.

Don’t waste your money on pasta sauces! Full of sugar and rubbish.

A carton of passata (sieved tomatoes) then add herbs, garlic.

It can take a while for the ragu as we cook it a long time but we also make a lot so it can be used as a non lasagne sauce too. Never taken an hour to make bechamel though.

It's just practice op. On a batch cook day I can get 5 things going and done in 2.5 hours ready to freeze.

I would do it all at once, e.g. as your butter melts, chop and fry your onions for a separate pan, stir the flour in to the butter and add some milk whilst the onions soften, then add beef to the onions whilst the becamel milk heats up.... it takes maybe 30 mins if you have both sauces on at once, max. Then maybe 5 mins to layer....

It is an effort though, I don't make them every week. It's a nice treat maybe once a month when I have time. I can't cope with stir in sauces, they're just full of stuff and it doesn't taste the same to me. Could you buy grated cheese if it bothers you grating it (it doesn't seem to take me that long tbh).

Shock horror- I’ve been known to make a quick meat lasagne meat lasagne meat cheese and skip the bechamel completely, and I like it!

Cheddar????
Why has no one mentioned the use of cheddar??
Please don’t add cheddar!

But you are so right. It takes ages, anyone saying it takes 45mins to an hour is not making it correctly.
It is also quite pricey to make.
When I make it I batch cook the bolognese, usually around 8kg. I freeze some as pasta sauce and I make a couple of lasagne and freeze one or two.

When I have made everything just for one lasagne it does feel like a lot of work.

oh and whilst I’m simmering i sometimes make lasagna sheets, so easy, though fresh (not dried) supermarket pasta doesn’t taste any different and dried tastes fine though different texture

This is why i buy a family
size one from my local butcher, he does a family size lasagne and family size pie, so 2 nights dinners for £15.50