Proper lasagna is a faff..

[BarrelOfOtters]

it is though.

I don’t meaning dumping jars of dolmio in a slow cooker. But a proper ragu and roux.

It is a faff but I love it! And love that you can make it in advance, it feels like a treat (probably because it's faffy!), you can make a huge batch and it's just as good the next day. Both DC aren't keen though which is annoying but I'm just thinking I could give them spag bol with the ragu and have lasagne for DP and I.

It is if you are starting the whole thing from scratch.

I tend to batch cook a bolognaise sauce/ragu and then portion and freeze it.

Sometimes I cheat and whip up a quick cheese sauce with cornflour rather than making a full béchamel sauce.

It's soooooo worth it though - I could eat lasagne every day

I think some of the people who suggest it is an easy family meal are perhaps taking the dolmio route....

Did you not read the posts? Many of us saying it's easy / not a faff are not doing this. I've never ever used Dolmio for anything - no great thought behind it, just don't.

It can be a faff, I guess if you've to factor in cooking time during a busy day that you've to be in & out for.

I guess I've been making it so long I just adapt it to our schedule eg often make in the evenings or prepare the Béchamel in the morning to have ready to prep lasagne later.

A piping bag is your friend here! Those big blue ones, used without a nozzle. It makes filling the tubes much easier and quicker and less messy!

I think it's easy. Made one yesterday. Chop veg, sauté for as long as you can. Fry off meat, add veg in, add garlic, herbs, chopped tomatoes, seasoning, cook for a bit.

I use sunflower oil, flour and punch of oregano plus milk of course

Most of that time is just it doing its thing in the oven though rather than a rice cooking...@SleepingStandingUp

Freezer space is an issue though, yes! Though the flat freezing takes up way less space...

Right, this thread has piqued my interest!

I have never made a lasagna. I live on my own and it has always seemed like a faff of a meal to cook. Plus, it doesn’t seem like an easy dish to divvy-up and freeze individual portions after.

I get the idea of cooking a huge batch of ragu and freezing it in bags. But does that mean that you have to make the white sauce each time you want to knock up an individual portion - or can that be batch cooked and frozen? Or can you make up lots of ready assembled portions (ie in those tin-foil dishes) and cook them all and then freeze to reheat when needed?

I am not really a fan of autumn, but am liking the idea of doing a ragu over a number of hours on a cold and wet day. If anyone could recommend which recipes to look at that would be great.

It takes about an hour and 15 from start to finish-so a bit of a faff but not major.

And even less time if you make the meat sauce in the slow cooker in advance then just finish it by reducing it on the hob a bit.

Plus I make two at once, one for now one for the freezer. It's the one meal that all four kids here love so we have it once a week, (but I only have to make it once a fortnight when I double up).

I love it but I do cheat a bit. I cook the ragu from scratch, don't use jars. Use fresh lasagne sheets as they seem easier to manouvre .... then I bung on a tub of the chilled cheese sauce you can buy in the supermarket ... add grated cheese/paprika ... gorgeous.

Even better the next day when it's a bit more solid.

I do find that the American habit of using ricotta instead of a white sauce speeds everything up quite a bit.
But I still prefer a béchamel sauce I think.

It is but I will sometimes make frying pan lasagne, I might well make it tonight inspired by this post.

Make a basic ragu in a pan.
Boil sheets of lasagne. (If you want to save on washing up then boil the sheets first and use the same pan for the ragu)
In a frying pan fry off loads of courgettes, aubergine, peppers whatever else you fancy. (I make this as a vege recipe but I guess you could add meat here, no idea as I don’t cook meat)
Stir in the ragu and lasagna sheets.
Put mozzarella (or cheddar) on top.
Put under the grill.
Eat.

When I was on the dole in my 20s I used to buy a pack of beef mince, which was cheap in those days due to the BSE outbreak, make a huge lasagne, portion it up and have it for dinner every night.

Same here. Maybe I'm not doing it 'properly' but I'm not using jars, it takes maybe an hour of kitchen time (including clean up) and tastes bloody lovely. Basically it's bolognese (which DH considers an 'effort' dinner, but I can have bubbling away in 30 minutes) plus a white/cheese sauce (a few minutes stirring - roux really isn't difficult especially with GF flour/cornflour) and then a bit of assembly and whack in the oven.

This is pretty similar to how I do it https://www.insidetherustickitchen.com/classic-beef-lasagne-spinach-pasta/

I make my pasta from scratch, as I like multiple thinner layers.

Personally, I make the full lasagne up in a pyrex dish with a lid, without the cheese on top, and freeze, uncooked. I then defrost, put cheese on the top and cook for about 45 minutes, rest for 5-10 mins and then serve (with green salad on the side). But, of course, that's full lasagnes feeding 6, not individual portions. I guess you could layer up individual portions in a tinfoil tray or something - but you'd probably need to adjust the cooking time.

I tend to make 3-4 full lasagnes at a time - one to eat on the day of cooking - 2 or 3 to freeze.

And frankly not worth the effort.

Yes, it absolutely is! But it's also absolutely worth it. I treble quantities and make a huge pot of ragu (I've used Delia's original recipe for 20+ years) which cooks slowly for about 5 hours. I then assemble 4 lasagnes and once cooled put 3 into the freezer (we have the remaining one the following day) For us it's a treat and not something we'd eat on a weekly basis so having a few in the freezer does us quite a while (and we get 2 days out of each one) Homemade lasagne is one of the nicest dinners ever

It takes just under 20 minutes to make the sauce. My lasagna serves 8 (or 6 greedy people 😁) -

50g butter
50g flour
500ml milk

Really easy

furries

It may be time consuming the first time but I promise you won't regret it.

I'll let others post a recipe as I've not got one handy but I'd recommend on the top layer just before you put the final flourish (shit tonne of!) grated cheese put some mozzarella chunks on too

Plus I find dried pasta sheets much easier to work with

Totally agree about the final top layer of mozarella, I added it once as had some that needed using up - scrumptious!

What would you call completely from scratch though?
The way I do it:

Brown the mince, add onions, garlic & herbs.
Add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes and tomato purée, cook for a while on low heat
Make the béchamel sauce
Start layering it up & stick in the oven

Am I doing it right? I find it a bit of a faff, but it’s my favourite thing, I find a roast or English breakfast a lot more annoying

it uses a lot of dishes and defiantly isn’t a quick after work dinner but I don’t mind doing it and I also have to make a veggie version. I actually have a lasagne dish that has 3 partitions so sometimes I do a veggie, beef and chicken version.
indont make the pasta from scratch and I also use tinned tomatoes in the sauce (rather than using fresh tomatoes to make a sauce ) but I make the white sauce completely from a scratch.
inalso put some spinach under the top layer of sauce and cheese which alsways goes down well.

Lasagna is my favourite dish but I'm not a good cook. What are the right herbs to use?

Yes, I do a one-pot version and don't bother with the white sauce. Just the ragu and pasta sheets in one pot on hob and then mozzarella on top and under the grill. A fraction of the time and washing up and everyone really likes it!

My apologies, I wasn't clear, I mean the people who suggest it on easy family meals threads may well be making it with a jarred sauce. People on this thread are not doing that.

Edited it to add jarred.