Making a lasagne from scratch

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Does anyone actually see the return of investment of time and money here?

I spent 2.5 hours making one (before it even went into the oven). The bechemel sauce took an hour. I don’t know where the time went but melting butter was fast and adding flour but stirring in all that milk and keeping the thickness too forever and I still ran out for the top layer which was devastating (it’s a one layer lasagne). Grating 50g Parmesan to go in is a work out, that’s before the 75g of cheddar to go on the top of it all. I did have kids with me but I wouldn’t ever bother doing it again.

I grew up eating dolmio made lasagnes and that’s how I was taught but since knowing that’s not the right way and additives etc, I’ve just bought lasagne from the deli or restaurants if I go out. Shop bought Charlie Bingham is lovely.

2.5 hours is such a long time. Does anyone do this regularly? It’s like two meals. A bolognaise then a bechemel and that’s before the art of the quantities and building the darn thing.

AIBU to feel so frustrated by this and not want to ever bother again. (Not going back to dolmio either)

What the heck have you been doing to take an hour to make the sauce. You’ve clearly been dawdling or doing other stuff too. There’s no way it would take someone over two hours to make a lasagne from scratch. I don’t believe it.

Same

I tend to make a lasagna- by making double batches of Bolognese and then making a Mac n cheese for the following night- with at least double the sauce and then make the lasagna with leftovers. We normally have several in the freezer for lazy teas.....

How ?

Chop onions , grate / chop garlic . Cook off with mince . Cook tomatoes until dark and almost syrupy . Chop herbs & add . Plus any veg you use ( celery , carrot ) , make a tomato sauce from it Combine with mince / onion mix . Cook long and slow at least an hour . Make Bechamel sauce , grate cheese , + a few stages I've probably missed out.
Layer up , put cheese on top , bake . I'd say that's a good few hours .

I love making lasagne. It does take (me) ages, but I like to make one when I have time and peace, music on, bit of chopping and stirring, it's a lovely way to spend some time. I love to cook but hate the 'rustle up dinner after a day at work's type cooking, so to have the time to do some 'proper' cooking is a happy couple of hours. I did not attempt such things while child wrangling (when DC was young) and with a time constraint.

Try reading all the OP's posts before you jump in with a snippy comment. She has two very young children and she's not made it before.

I use low fat natural yogurt mixed with cheese instead of the Bechemel. So much simpler and really tasty.

Homemade tastes a million times better than dolmio or ready meal, but it does take a surprising amount of time, and I cook loads.

I think that the secret to doing it quickly is to make bolognaise one week, make double the quantity and freeze. Make lasagna the next week using the frozen bolognaise.

Bechemal is just practice - it gets quicker as you get more used to doing it. Add some nutmeg at the end - divine!

2 1/2 hours? 😳 Usually knock 1 up in 45 minutes -an hour. You not got a pan blender? Saves time rather than standing there for ages stirring.

A quicker way of doing bechamel sauce is to mix some cornflour with a bit of water and add that to the milk. If you have a good cheddar to add to it it doesn't taste any different to done with butter.

It wouldn't take that long but it is a time investment. I'm never sure it's worth the payback; it's not quite nice enough. But still nice!

Are you lining up the tasks efficiently? I make the bechemal while the ragu simmers. And you can be clearing up etc while you give the thickening bechemal the odd stir.

The other option is to have a white sauce made from crème fraîche/cream and cheese etc. That just needs whisking in a bowl. I do that for spinach and ricotta, look at Jamie Oliver.

Also make a massive batch and freeze - it's a recipe that pays back batch cooking very well.

Having had a few disasters making lasagne when I was younger I still feel proud of myself when I make one now 🤣 It's definitely a weekend dinner though as it does take ages to make. I hope you enjoy it.

I should preface this by saying I'm an impatient person and not a particularly good cook!

I agree in principle, OP. I think its because I can make a dinner of spaghetti bolognese in 20 mins that's perfectly edible and yet to have lasagne, it feels like you go over and above this for a dinner that in theory would already be fine as just the bolognese (if that makes sense). It is a bit nicer IMO, but is it worth it...I'm not sure.

I make macaroni cheese a lot so I can make a basic white sauce in about 5 minutes. I wouldn't bother using two types of cheese. I use a tin of tomatoes and throw some herbs in. Assembly is just a rough guess at quantities of each layer.

I can imagine that a lasagne where the mince has been slowly cooking for hours etc and a complicated white sauce recipe would be absolutely lovely, but it's not something that I would do currently. Same principle applies again as above really...is a beautiful lasagne worth the effort over a reasonable one! (ETA some would say yes, some would say no..it's not a black and white right or wrong).

My recipe (serves 6)
large onion finely chopped
2 medium carrots finely chopped
2 sticks celery finely chopped

saute in a pan with a little olive oil and pinch of salt for 15-20 minutes.

3 large cloves garlic finely chopped

add to the veg
add 2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 heaped teaspoon oregano
salt and black pepper
1 bay leaf
bring to boil and reduce to simmer.

cut a mozzarella ball into 6
grate 150g cheddar or other hard cheese
chop 30g flat leaf parsley

fry 500g mince in a separate pan, 20% fat mixed pork and beef tastes good but lower fat is fine
Add the sauce and simmer for another 20 minutes. Make the bechemel

1tbsp flour
1 ounce butter (or sunflower oil works well)
mix on low heat the gradually add 500ml milk, add 50g of the cheese, teaspoon oregano and half the parsley.

add the remaining parsley to the mince, layer up the lasagna top with Bechemel, the mozzarella and sprinkle with cheese.

im not a chef but i have sold this commercially at events (i have a vegetarian version too plus made a vegan version which the vegans loved but i didn’t like the weird taste of fake cheese!)

Also if it's your first time, you'll get faster! It takes much longer if you are constantly checking the book and having to actually think about stuff.

That's the recipe I use. It's really easy and relatively speedy.

On the plus side If you do it with salad and garlic bread I can usually stretch it to do us for tea the next night as well. Have to hide it from DS if he's staying or he'll eat the lot.

30 mins on average for me too. Bechamel cooks at same time as meat sauce. Super easy.

I bother making it because it tastes nicer. Don’t think I’ve ever spent that long making one though.

Never never ever buy the sauce. It's so quick and easy to do.

My shortcut would be to use a frozen soffrito mix ( onion carrot celery) and make sure to drain off the excess liquid.

Best quality mince - never the lean kind and n3ver ever turkey. Venison works well too. But stronger flavour.

Red wine a bay leaf and a drop of milk in the mince mix a la Elizabeth David.

Should not take long. But better served the next day.

I remember doing some kind of quick-ish version something like the link below which was quite nice, although I appreciate not for everyone!

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-lasagne

Homemade from scratch is the only decent lasagna. We got a free Charlie Bigham it was gross, too sweet for me.

An hour on the bechemel sauce is hilarious. How can it take that long?

For 750 ml of milk i would use 75g butter and 75g of flour. It still shoulnt take an hour. Generally adding milk slowly would be to add around 100 - 150 ml, whisk it in and repeat until milk used should only take 5 to 10 mins then a low simmer while stirring for a 5 mins to make sure the raw flour is cooked out. Add salt, white pepper and nutmeg and that's it.

It shouldn't have taken you this long.

There's no difference in ingredients between pre grated or block parmesan/cheddar so get the pre grated and save some time there.

I've never thought of bechamel sauce as a time intensive job (it's like 5 mins?) so I'm not sure how you've managed to drag that out.

I still make a bunch at once and freeze because I don't like cooking after work. So I would recommend doing that next time, at least you'll feel like your hard work has given more of a return.

I love making lasagna but I would not have attempted it with a toddler around. And the fact that you went shopping right before means that the whole thing feels like it took a really long time.

Next time it will be faster as you have done it before. And make a double portion, freeze one. It's excellent make ahead meal.

The secret for me is:

batch cook bolognaise frozen so that’s already done
cheat’s white sauce: mix of creme fraiche / soured cream / Greek yoghurt etc with S&P, Parmesan & nutmeg rather than bechamel

Suddenly it’s an assembly job rather than a cooking marathon