Scott’s 6-pound lasagna
I’m a big eater. I take my lasagna seriously. This recipe fills a 10 x 14″ lasagna pan with 6 pounds of melted gooey goodness. Enough for days of delicious leftovers. Here’s your shopping list:
- Go buy a 10 x 14″ lasagna pan. The size is important as you’ll see later. They sell them at your local supermarket. Go buy one.
- 1 pound of shredded romano cheese. Buy it pre-shredded; shredding cheese is for suckers and I’ll show you how to skip it.
- 1 pound of provolone cheese, aged if you can find it.
- 2 pounds of fresh ricotta cheese. Buy the whole milk kind. Real men don’t drink skim milk.
- 2 pounds of mozzarella cheese.
- 2 quarts of your favorite tomato sauce. I like “Mid’s Homestyle Pasta Sauce”, it’s as good as anything I can make from scratch and a lot faster.
- 2 boxes of no-boil lasagna noodles. The no-boil kind not only taste better, but they’re faster and easier to work with, and you don’t have to wait for water to boil.
- A handful of parsley.
- A tablespoon of cinnamon.
- 3 eggs.
You’ll thank me for this first step because you’ll avoid an hour of tedious cheese-shredding. Take your mozzarella, provolone, and a big knife over to your breadboard. Chop the cheese into cubes about a half-inch square. This should only take a few minutes if you’re big and strong and can cut thru a whole block of cheese at once. Toss the cheese into a bowl and mix it so the provolone is evenly incorporated into the mozzarella.
Now we’ll make the ricotta filling. Grab a mixing bowl and dump the ricotta cheese, romano cheese, parsley, cinnamon, and eggs into it. Stir until everything is evenly incorporated. Set aside for now.
Take your 10 x 14″ lasagna pan and spread 1/4″ of tomato sauce into an even layer in the bottom. Grab a box of no-boil lasagna noodle and start laying them in so the long side of the noodle goes along the long edge of the pan. You will find that two noodles end-to-end fit exactly into the pan. You’ll make two rows with four noodles, then take a fifth noodle and break it in half the long way. These pieces should fit more or less into the remaining space in the pan. It’s okay if the noodles aren’t perfect, you’ll be too busy heaving sighs of contentment later to notice.
Take the ricotta filling and make dollops more-or-less evenly across the noodles. Use about half the filling. You don’t have to spread it into an even layer; the lasagna takes care of evening everything out by itself while it cooks.
Put another layer of noodles on. This time start from the other edge of the pan so the gaps are staggered over the gaps in the first layer of noodles. Kind of like putting shingles on a roof. If you’re really uptight, now would be a good time to press gently down on the noodles to squoosh the ricotta filling below. Spread about a 1/4″ of tomato sauce over the noodles, and follow that with about half the cheese cubes.
Build another layer…noodles, sauce, then the rest of the ricotta filling.
Build the final layer…noodles, sauce, the the rest of the cubed cheese.
Cook in the oven at about 350 degrees for about an hour. Once the cheese on top starts to get bubbly and brown, it’s done. Take it out and let it cool off for about twenty minutes. You don’t want to burn your tongue.
Enjoy.
