Homemade lasagna.

[Idrinkmywhiskeyneat]

Is it one of the best inventions known to man?
Just stood in the kitchen with my lovely meaty, tomatoey sauce in one pan and the cheesy loveliness in the other. One of the best best is getting a spoonful of the mincemeat and topping it with the cheese sauce and just eating it off the spoon, whilst you’re stood over it, cooking it all. It has to be a very tomatoey, cheesy, thick lasagna, also extra nice, if left and eaten later in the evening or the next morning,

Anyway, sorry, just a homemade lasagna appreciation post.

Love a proper lasagna, one where you have to book out a whole afternoon to cook the ragu and bechemel.

My fave recipe is lasagna of love by Nigella, in Cook, Eat, Repeat. It's time consuming but pretty straightforward, all my family love it. You heat up the milk for the bechemel with the onion/garlic/carrot peelings and skins then leave it to infuse for an hr while the ragu cooks, then remove all the peelings from the warm milk. The bechemel then has a really savoury depth to it, I love it, it's such a good tip. And I add grated Parmesan to the bechemel, because how can more cheese on a lasagna ever be wrong?! Might have to make a lasagna this weekend now...

I love lasagne too. What's your recipe please OP?

Each to their own I suppose. I bet it's nearly all sauce.

Soooo now I’m thinking I’ve been making lasagna wrong, or at least different from
others. I never looked at a recipe, just copied my mum.

I do it this way:

Olive oil in a pan
Minced beef goes in, with chopped garlic and chopped onions
Once it’s browned off, add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes (ones with extra herbs and garlic etc)
Add quite a large about of tomato purée in tube
Mix it all, add Italian herbs, leave to simmer

Start the bechamel (plus cheese sauce)
Melted butter, milk, flour and lots of grated cheddar cheese.

Make it all in layers and top with more grated cheddar and mozarella (almost cheeses can work though)

Serve with…big boiled, buttery potatoes 😅

I’m as likely to try an Iceland frozen one but each to their own. 😁

It would be a very boring world if we all had the same tastes.

Once made one which was a mix of pork and beef mince, chicken livers, burrata and Parmesan (between each layer) and fuck tonne of love (and can’t remember what else). Absolutely a proper bechamel though. A very traditional Italian recipe.

Think it took about 4 days to make* but my god, it was a thing of beauty.

Lots of red wine and a simple green dressed salad (with warm baguettes and butter) and I had very very happy guests. Apart from the person who forgot to tell me they were a vegetarian.

*May be a slight exaggeration but I seem to remember it was a 2 day ‘leave to rest’ job.

Love love lasagna. This is my go to recipe, even my lasagna hating DH and DS love it when I make it. Its time consuming (5 hours) but so worth it! The more you reduce the ragu the stiffer the lasagna.

https://www.insidetherustickitchen.com/classic-beef-lasagne-spinach-pasta/

Sometimes I make a ‘lasagne’ but with sliced potatoes instead of pasta layers OP sounds like this would be your cup of tea

@Idrinkmywhiskeyneat , it's the herbs I always get wrong!

Meh. Boring.
I'm having a homemade Briyani. Now that's a meal.

I love it but it’s a faff to make.

Make double the quantity of ragu, then a couple of days later, use it to make moussaka, which is another kitchen marathon but so much worth it.
🍆 🍆 🍆 🍆 🍆

I would fry off some finely chopped carrot and celery with the onions and garlic first. I'd use 1 tin of chopped up plum tomatoes( tastier and less watery than tins of ready chopped tomatoes) and some passata and a beef stock pot, bit of wine of any colour but red the nicest if I've got some open. Add a teaspoon of sugar to take off the acidity of the tomatoes.
I put lots of extra mature cheddar in the bechemel with some freshly grated parmesan ( off a block, not ready grated or dried).
So, similar to yours although not with the potatoes! I'd have green salad with lots of dressing instead, or maybe some garlic bread.

This!!!!

Bolognaise is the French spelling of the Italian dish, so I don't know why Brits use it.

Lasagne is the plural of lasagna. The word 'lasagne' means the sheets of pasta, which are plural, just like all the other words for pasta (fusilli, penne etc), because you don't generally eat only one piece! Lasagna is a correct word, but technically it would mean one sheet.

It's not much more effort than making a pasta Bolognese though. A white cheese sauce only takes minutes then you just layer it with the lasagne sheets and ragu and stick it in the oven. Only 2 saucepans and a dish. I've made loads of dishes that are a lot more of a faff than that.

I love a home made lasagne...
Can I ask how you layer it as I've seen so many variations within the Italian community?

@Westfacing

Come oooon! The best pub meal is (homemade by the pub) Lasagne, chips and garlic bread. Carbs with carbs with carbs!!!

No "cheese" sauce at all. Just bechamel. Parmesan in the layers and on top. End of.

Top tip.

Make double your normal quantity of bolognese, eat first half that night with spaghetti.

Freeze other half.

Defrost in the fridge the day before making lasagne.

Then you only have half the faf of making white cheesy or béchamel sauce and assembling.

We eat much more lasagne these days! 😂

@KnittedCardi Nah, too bland

Tesco Finest is the best supermarket lasagne I've tried. It's expensive, though, for the amount you get.

My mum always served it with baked potatoes she’s Italian and when she came to the uk she thought they were an excellent pairing 😂 I tend to agree

Love a homemade lasagne and now I want one!
Keema currently cooking for tonight but maybe tomorrow...

YABU to make cheese sauce instead of bechamel.