Could you help me up my lasagne game please?

[ofestivetree]

This is what I usually do:

2 onions
2 cloves of garlic

Fry them up a bit

500g mince - 10% fat

Brown the mince in the same pan

3 tablespoons of red lentils
1 courgette chopped up into quarter slices
Supermarket red lasagne sauce

All in the same pan. Cook corgettes through.

Then layer up with supermarket pasta sheets and white sauce.

Top with cheese.

Bake until cooked.

End result is very tasty but how can I up my game?

Slow cook the ragu for hours. In a slow cooker or oven on low if not.

Makes all the difference. Plus good quality tin toms

The lentils and courgettes are a mistake. Better veggies would be lots of onion, carrot, drained spinach, stewed tomatoes, mushrooms if browned well. Lots of herbs!! Simmer the jarred sauce with the aromatics and whatever else, honestly the more flavor you add here and the longer you simmer the better it will taste. Tomatoes need a bit of sugar to balance the flavor. If you use carrots they will do the job. If you're going for a southern italian flavor use various types of meat, the norm is like 5 different kinds stewed at different intervals all effing day and usually really oily. I'm vegetarian so I use lots of parm (cooked in the sauce, adds lots of umami) but sometimes I'll do meat for my kids, lean beef like you and I season/spice it up really well. Pork with beef is so much better but I'm just not into meat. Every layer of ingredients need to be seasoned well, so if you sauté some veggies they need to be seasoned before added to the sauce, same for meat, unless you are just simmering it all together.

Try John Chandler's recipe on 'All Recipes' website; it's really good.
A long simmer for the ragu definitely makes a difference.
I don't use their white sauce version though as we prefer mine.
And plenty of cheese 🧀

Once cooked and cooled, easy to wrap portions in foil and freeze. A nice quick freezer meal and I find it often tastes even nicer than freshly cooked.

Honestly if you can’t be arsed to make white sauce blitz a tub of Philadelphia a tub of double cream an egg and a teaspoon of mustard.

I brown the mince first ( use a hot frying pan , tip mince in , no oil needed , ) then add the onions and garlic
Add grated carrot and celery , tbh I chop all the veg in my magimix type machine
Add passata , herbs, stock cube salt and pepper and let it cook away
I’m liking the Worcestershire sauce idea , might give that a try
Its much the same as you , but no jars needed

The addition is we add a layer of spinach and ricotta , just cook a load of frozen spinach in the microwave, drain it well and chuck in magimix with ricotta ( or Philly , mascarpone whichever is available )

We layer up …
Meat , lasagne sheets , spinach mixture, lasagne , rest of meat , lasagne then top with white sauce with lots of cheese

you can add veggies like peppers, mushrooms, red onions, anything even aubergine but roast and char them first in a tray so they are not watery and generally it tastes loads better as gets rid of that raw veg taste.

Home cooked sauces are best and as it’s such a process, make it the day before you eat it and bake on the day. It tastes better once the lasagne has had time to soak everything up.

Thank you all for the tips!

Brown the mince longer than you think you need to. Tastes meatier that way.

Grate a little nutmeg into your white sauce. I make my own white sauce too.

When layering put a layer of grate mozzarella on each layer of white sauce. Makes it extra rich and creamy.

What do people think about adding a spoon of coffee granules to the mince?

I forgot to add- smoked paprika. Sweet fresh peppers, red, yellow or orange are good too. A bit of chipotle powder will add an extra dimension that I love. Not enough to make it arrabbiata unless you like that, but enough to be a background punch of flavor.

I use a white sauce or bechamel if I want to make it next level, I think a cheese sauce is too much.

I finely chop celery, onion, carrot and sweat for at least 10 minutes, adding in crushed garlic half way through.

I would use a higher fat content mince, but brown separately in a frying pan and then use a slotted spoon to transfer it to the vegetables, to separate it from the fat. Then I add a tin of tomatoes, half a Knorr beef stock cube, dried oregano, bay leaf, good splash of red wine, tomato puree, salt and pepper. (If I am making a bolognese sauce, I also add fried pancetta cubes, fried sliced mushrooms, a splash of double cream). I leave it to simmer as long as I can with the lid half on.

Meanwhile make a bechamel sauce (Delia is my reference)

Then layer beef, bechamel, lasagne sheets, cover the last lasagne sheet with bechamel, maybe some mozzarella, then cover with a layer of freshly grated parmesan.

My initial reaction was WTF but honestly I love experimenting so why not? Have you done this before? Wouldn't instant or brewed be better than actual ground coffee?

This one is delicious

www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk/best-lasagne-recipe/

No I remember seeing a sansburys ad once saying to add it to something mincey though.

I probably have enough ideas to work on it though without adding that one into the mix!

Thank you again everybody!

I am all for ready made but ready made white sauce is awful, and courgette and lasagne to me don't mix

Apart from anything it adds too much water I think but I hate veg in lasagne apart from mushroom and onion

I would agree with this. Home made beef stock really helps.

I use my ordinary Bolognese sauce, which is 12% beef mince, passata, onions, garlic, mixed herbs, oregano (lots) and some bovril - simmered for at least 2 hours to amalgamate all the flavours.
Also cheese sauce rather than white sauce, and extra cheese on top.
Bottom layer meat sauce, then lasagne sheets, then more meat sauce, then cheese sauce, then pasta again and repeat until everything is used up, with the top layer being cheese sauce and extra cheese on top.
It's not a classic, traditional or 'correct' lasagne, but it is blooming delicious! It is so rich I just serve it with salad.

Add pancetta or lardons with the meat. Bit of dry white wine and burn it off. Bechamel sauce, not cheese sauce. Layer meat, grated mozzarella, lasagne sheets, bechamel sauce and grated parmesan, end with sauce and parmesan layer. Perfect every time. I cook the meat sauce in a slow cooker, after browning the meat (with carrots, garlic, onion, tomato puree).

This is the recipe I use.

This is my lasagne:

Onions, garlic fried in the oil from a jar of sundried tomatoes

Wizz up tinned tomatoes with sundried tomatoes and roasted peppers (from a jar), plus some fresh basil leaves.

Add to the onion pan.

Add a dash of balsamic vinegar and a tsp of sugar, also a squirt of tomato pure.

We’re veggie, so then add Quorn mince, but you can fry the real meat mince after the onion frying stage.

Simmer low and slow.

Whilst that’s simmering, make a white sauce adding the essential to me wholegrain mustard an a tonne of grated strong cheddar..

Assemble lasagne, add yet more fromage, bake for 40 mins

Then finally stuff your face.

It’s a ffaff, so I don’t make it often

I have to say that we make the best lasagne. People love coming round for it.

I fry the veg- onions, celery, aubergine and garlic. Add mince and drain the fat. Add some tomato puree and a dash of wine. Add tinned tomatoes and a stock cube, a bit of sugar or dark chocolate. Spinach also goes in. Also add a dash of milk, it really works.

Cook on low for at least 3 hours in the oven-so it's reduced and not sloppy. Season well with salt and pepper and some herbs. A pinch of Cinnamon also works well. The longer and lower it's cooked the better.

White sauce with nutmeg and lots of cheese. Seasoned well with salt and pepper. I use quite a lot of pasta sheets and add cheese and mozzarella to the top. Let it rest for 10 minutes before serving- although I rarely manage to wait.

Coffee? Courgette? What?

lasagne is a labour of love, I prob make one every two weeks or so but you should anticipate it taking several hours of easy cooking.

this is how I do it:
pancetta into a pan until the fat renders. Whilst you do this, finely chop two carrots, two celery stalks, an onion.

add these to the pan and fry off in the port fat until they’re soft.

add 500g mince- pref 15% fat, in small batches. Allow it to get browned properly- stir so the veg don’t burn.

once all meat is added, two chopped garlic cloves, off.

add a glass of red wine, let it reduce.

add two cans of tinned tomatoes. Fill a can with milk, add the milk.

two bay leaves, good dose of oregano, good squeeze purée, pepper. I don’t usually salt as pancetta adds that

stir and then just allow to reduce for hours. Taste for seasoning.

to make a white sauce- good knob of butter in a pan- maybe 50g? Dump in a few tablespoons of flour and whisk until it sizzles. Add a cup of milk. Whisk until thickens. Add salt and pepper. Add milk until it thickens to the right consistency.

before you layer up, add fresh basil to your ragu.

layer up- meat/pasta/meat/pasta/bechamel.

generous layer of cheese.

bake til done.

There is a Jamie Oliver receipe that's lovely. Takes about 3 hours to cook. No roux it's just a creme fraiche mixture. If I remember rightly.