Cooking has taught me that a memorable table begins with a recipe worth sharing, especially one like Meat Lasagna. This is a satisfying dish to keep in mind whenever dinner deserves a little more attention. Once it is in the oven, the kitchen begins to do that wonderful work of building anticipation.
Ingredients
- 13 lasagna sheets
- 9×13 baking dish
Instructions
- Boil the pasta according to package, I like to let it sit extra 5 minutes in the water with out cooking before rinsing in cold water.
- Meat sauce.
- 6 lb. Ground beef (725 grams).
- 2 tbs salted butter.
- 1/2 medium onion finely chopped (about 3/4 cup).
- 1 large carrot shredded (about 1 1/4 cup).
- 4 tbs tomato paste (about 2 heaping tbs).
- 1 tbs dried basil.
- 1/2 tbs dried oregano.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Enough water to cover the meat.
- In a pot add the meat, salt and black pepper, break the meat down and cook covered on low until it changes color.
- Uncover and let the juices evaporate, add butter, onion, shredded carrot and the dried herbs give it a stir and cover to cook for a couple of minutes on low, uncover add the tomato paste enough water to cover the meat. Let cook covered slowly for 15-20 minutes.
- Bechamel sauce.
- 5 tbs salted butter.
- 5 tbs flour.
- 3 cups milk whole fat.
- 1 egg.
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon ground, 1/4 tsp salt, dash of black pepper.
- Lots of mozzarella cheese and parmigiano Reggiano.
- Make your roux melt the butter on low add the flour and whisk through, add 1 cup milk slowly while whisking so the roux doesn’t curdle add the rest of the milk and whisk, add the egg, cinnamon, salt and black pepper and keep whisking until it bubbles (don’t worry if it feels still runny, it will thicken as it sits. Make sure to stir in between while preparing the layers so it doesn’t form skin on top).
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Spread a bit of bachamel sauce at the bottom of the baking dish, layer 4 sheets of lasagna sheets over lapping, add meat sauce (I like to add most of the meat in the first 2 layers and keep it light on top, so that most of the bachamel sauce would be on top) add the bachamel sauce, mozzarella cheese and parmigiano cheese.
- Continue 2 more times, on the last layer add the most cheese and bachamel. That’s how you get the crust.
- Bake for 20 minutes bottom shelf and 5 minutes on top shelf to brown.
- Let sit before cutting into it.