Ingredients
Equipment
Method
Make Bolognese Meat Sauce
- Brown the ground beef and sausage in a large Dutch oven or pot on medium heat. Once the meat is browned, drain it, return it to the Dutch oven, and add the chopped onion and minced garlic, and cook on medium-low heat for 5 minutes.
- Add the Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper as well as the quart of pasta sauce. Stir well, cover, and simmer on low for at least 30 minutes. If possible, simmer for a few hours or even all day to bring out depth and flavor in the sauce.
Make Pasta Dough
- I like using my own pasta. An hour before you are ready to assemble the lasagna, make fresh sourdough pasta. You can learn more from my sourdough pasta recipe. You can use active sourdough starter or sourdough discard.
- In a large bowl or directly on your countertop add the flour and make a well with the back of a spoon or measuring cup.
- Add the starter, salt, eggs, and oil to the well.
- Whisk it all into the flour with a fork and then turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.
- Knead the sourdough pasta dough for 3-4 minutes until smooth. It should be slightly sticky, but still easy to handle. It should not be dry or crumbly.
- Let the dough rest: wrap the dough in plastic wrap or in a zip-loc bag and set it to the side to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Make Ricotta Mixture
- While the pasta dough is resting and the bolognese sauce is still simmering, make the ricotta cheese mixture. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the ricotta, salt, egg, and parsley, and set aside.
- Shred, grate, or slice the mozzarella and parmesan cheeses if you are not using pre-shredded.
- Mix the shredded cheeses in a small bowl and set aside.
Roll and Cut Pasta Sheets
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pasta out into thin sheets and cut enough for 3 layers of pasta to fit your 9x13" baking sheet. A KitchenAid stand mixer with a pasta attachment works well, but I use this manual pasta maker, and it works great.
- Once the homemade pasta sheets are cut, dust them with flour on each side so they do not stick together, stack them up, and set them aside for assembly.
- These fresh lasagna sheets do not need to be pre-boiled, so no need for big pots of boiling water or shocking the noodles in cold water after. The fresh pasta will go straight into the lasagna and be cooked perfectly al dente during the baking process.
Assemble and Bake
- Assemble the lasagna in a greased 9x13 baking dish. This recipe makes three layers of lasagna.
- First layer: Start by spooning a third of the bolognese sauce into the baking dish. Add the first layer of noodles, then spread a third of the ricotta egg mixture over the lasagna noodles.
- Top with a third of the shredded cheese mixture. This completes one single layer of the lasagna.
- Second layer: On top of the shredded cheese, add a third of the bolognese sauce, another layer of lasagna noodles/sheets, another ricotta cheese layer, and another shredded cheese layer.
- Third layer: Same as the second layer. Top the shredded cheese with chopped parsley this time, cover the lasagna with a piece of aluminum foil.
- Bake at 375°F for 30 minutes.
- Uncover and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the lasagna from the oven and let cool and set for 30 minutes before serving so it holds its shape. It really is best to let it set before serving or the lasagna will spread all over the plates like soup rather than maintaining its shape.
Nutrition
Notes
3 Important Tips for the Best Results
1. Don't skip making the fresh lasagna sheets.- While this recipe can absolutely be adapted to use store-bought lasagna sheets, part of what makes it so good is the fresh pasta!
- Any tomato-based sauce develops more depth and flavor over time. This is why meals like chili, spaghetti, and lasagna are so often better the next day than if eaten fresh!
- One way to get that depth and flavor of next-day lasagna is to simmer the bolognese on low all day long, just like the Italian grannies do on Sundays before preparing and serving Sunday dinner to the family (its often called Sunday sauce among Italians for this reason, or so I'm told by my Italian friends).
- Making lasagna completely from scratch, especially making the fresh pasta sheets from scratch, can be a chore that takes quite a bit of time! Utilize your time well by preparing this dish the night before and making a double or triple batch.
- This isn't actually that much more work since you're already making everything anyway. You'll be glad you put that little bit of extra work in on a busy night when you can pull a batch of fresh lasagna out of the freezer, bake it, and enjoy.
Storage
- This lasagna can be prepared a day or two before baking. Just cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate the assembled lasagna, then bake when you're ready. Store leftover lasagna in the fridge in an airtight container for 4-5 days.
- This sourdough lasagna freezes well. It can be frozen in an airtight container before baking or after baking, it stays fresh in the freezer for 3 months.