Name: Lasagna for Family Night
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 90 min
Ingredients: 1 1/2 packages dried lasagna noodles; 24 oz ricotta cheese; 1 lb. ground beef; 1 lb. ground sweet Italian sausage; 1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan - divided; 1 medium yellow onion finely diced; 5 cloves of garlic minced or crushed - divided; 2 28 oz canned whole peeled tomatoes (I use San Marzano); 3 tbsp of tomato paste; 1/2 cup dry red wine (I use cabernet sauvignon); pinch of granulated sugar; 1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley chopped; 1 1/2 lbs. sliced mozzarella cheese (or 3 cups shredded); 3/4 cup fresh basil - torn or chiffonade - divided; 1 tbsp. dried oregano; 1 tbsp. dried marjoram; 1 tbsp. dried thyme; 2 tbsp. olive oil

This lasagna is so delicious! It can be made and eaten in one night, or frozen for when you need a quick meal during the week! It's cheesy, tangy, and filling! I really hope you enjoy!

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Family night

Family nights are special nights in my home. Being a dad to two teenagers, you learn quickly that spending time with your kids is important. One place we can come together and communicate is the dinner table. This poses another problem, however. My kids, despite my best efforts, are incredibly picky eaters. Sometimes, this limits me in what I can cook, but lasagna is always a smash hit.

Lasagna, oh yeah!

This lasagna combines several different types of cheese, my favorite meat sauce, and pasta (which is quite possibly my second love). My kids love it, my wife loves it, and it's a hit with my friends. The ricotta is creamy, the mozzarella is melty, the tomato sauce has a solid tang with a little bit of wine flavor added in. All in all, just a delicious layered lasagna with amazing flavor in every bite!

Most of this can be made ahead of time to save time cooking fresh, or you could assemble the whole lasagna, freeze it, and have a meal that can be made in about an hour when you don't have the time to assemble same day. Either way, you're going to love it! So, let's discuss some of the ingredients.

San Marzano Tomatoes

The meat sauce I use here can be used on almost any pasta dish that you want a solid tomato based sauce. I use canned tomatoes, but they're a special type of tomato. I typically use San Marzano tomatoes for all of my pasta sauces. These tomatoes are a special variety of plum tomato, and they are only grown is a small region of Italy near the base of Mt. Vesuvius. The volcanic soil gives them a softer texture and less acidic flavor. They are also genetically different in the number of seed pockets that are inside the tomato. Most plum tomatoes have 5 seed pockets. San Marzanos have 2. This leaves you with fewer seeds when crushing the tomatoes by hand, which means fewer seeds in your sauce. They're a little more expensive than regular canned tomatoes, but I love the flavor and texture. That being said, I recently was made aware of an article from Epicurious.com that named Red Pack (or Red Gold in some parts of the U.S.) as the best canned tomato around. You can read that here and judge for yourself.

What else are we putting in here?

The rest of the meat sauce uses a pound of ground beef (I always use 80/20 for a good meat to fat ratio) and a pound of sweet Italian sausage. We're also going to add some finely diced onion, some minced or crushed fresh garlic, a little bit of tomato paste to help thicken the sauce, and some various dried herbs (including 2 dried bay leaves that you'll have to pull out before serving). Then we're going to bring it to a boil, and then simmer for as long as you like. I usually recommend at least an hour to really bring the flavors together, but if you don't have the time, it's still going to taste great after about 20 minutes. When you have about 10 minutes left, add some fresh basil. Fresh herbs are different from dried. If you add them at the beginning, they'll burn and get bitter. Add them at the end and they impart some AMAZING flavor to your sauce! Now, on to the ricotta.

We use about a 24 oz. of ricotta total in the lasagna. Ricotta is creamy, and it takes on flavor very well. To give it the additional flavor, we're going to throw in a little more minced garlic, some freshly grated Parmesan, salt, and about ¼ cup of chopped Italian parsley. The parsley gives a great herbaceous taste to the ricotta and you can taste it throughout the lasagna. But, let's talk about the Parmesan for a minute.

Parmigiano Reggiano, the real stuff

There are a lot of ways to cut costs when making these recipes. You can use regular canned tomatoes instead of San Marzano, you can substitute the Italian sausage for more ground beef, you can buy shredded mozzarella from the bag instead of fresh mozzarella slices, you could even use a jarred spaghetti sauce in place of making your own, but you simply cannot substitute the fresh Parmesan. Parmigiano Reggiano is the only real Parmesan cheese there is. There is, no joke, only one family in the world that is able to certify Parmigiano Reggiano as real. It does make it a more expensive cheese, but you CANNOT substitute the flavor. It's a night and day difference, and you definitely won't regret it.

Assembly

Finally, we come to assembling the lasagna. We've boiled the noodles in salted water to just under al dente, we've got our sauce ready, and the ricotta mixture ready, so here we go. We'll add some sauce to the bottom of the pan. This keeps the noodles from sticking to the pan. Then we're going to lay the noodles on the sauce long ways. On top of the noodles, we'll add the ricotta mixture, then the mozzarella, then sauce, then repeat. We'll do that for as many layers as we can fit in the dish. End on the top of the lasagna with a little bit of sauce and then add more of that fresh parm. Throw it in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes. If you're freezing it for later, cover with foil and throw it in the freezer. Thaw it out before cooking, and keep the temp and time the same. I dress the top with some more fresh basil after cooking. You'll appreciate that extra flavor.

We love lasagna around here, I know you'll enjoy it too!

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