Easy Italian Sausage Lasagna

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Lasagna is one of my favorite meals to make for a party. It’s the perfect meal to have to gather your people together and enjoy a long, leisurely dinner over. (Sob, writing this from quarantine. Dreaming about having friends and family over to have this.) It also freezes like a champ so I like to make sure I have one in the freezer at all times if I need emergency pasta. Win win win. It’s a rich, filling, beautiful dish- that cheesy, creamy layer, a rich hearty tomato sauce with italian sausage, the pasta, and of course, CHEESE. It’s a pretty quick process, especially with these Sloth Shortcuts.

It’s such a great dish to make for hosting dinner because the prep right before you are going to eat it is MINIMAL. It just needs to hang out in the oven and then cool off for a bit. If you pulled it out of the freezer, even better. Unlike other dishes I’ve tried to make with guests over that are really prep heavy at the end… stresssss. Don’t be stressed out when your people are here! You want to be chill. You want to sit on your patio and talk to your people and drink wine while you smell your delicious food cooking. Or you want to be watching The Office for the 47^th time if this is a Monday night dinner and you pulled this out of your freezer.

Lasagna also has the easiest, most crowd-pleasing sides in the whole world – helloooo garlic bread and salad. Also great if you’re outsourcing sides to your Enneagram 2 friends who want to bring something over for dinner. (I’m obsessed with the Enneagram… read more about it here). And OBVIOUSLY, this is an Italian dinner so you should crack open a bottle of wine or two. Instant Party. Or pasta Monday, whichever. This is my favorite, go-to lasagna recipe- originally my mom’s recipe! It has lots of simplifications I’ve made and some variations and substitutions you can use based on what’s in your fridge.

In this recipe, you can either do one large lasagna (9×13 inch size) OR two smaller pans (6×9 inch size). For just two people, I love doing two smaller pans- cook one and freeze one!

The Creamy Cheese Layer

The first simplification and substitution I use is…

cottage cheese.

HEAR ME OUT! You can absolutely use ricotta in this, but if you only have cottage cheese, the secret to making the texture more like a traditional ricotta filling is to run the cottage cheese though a food processor. The texture becomes finer, more like ricotta, and it makes a great creamy filling. Of course, if you have ricotta – you can for sure use that. I tend to have a lot of cottage cheese in my fridge for snacking, lunches, etc. so I like being able to use what I have. I’ve made it both ways – ricotta and the blended cottage cheese – and I honestly can’t taste a difference. If you don’t want to run it through the food processor, that’s ok- the texture will just be different. I like the smooth filling, so I always do this.

To the blended cottage cheese (or ricotta), we’re adding a couple of eggs – these are a binder to give the filling some legs to stand on. Just throw them in the food processor, don’t get another bowl dirty! Also add some parmesan cheese, some shredded mozzarella cheese, and the herbs and spices (parsley, oregano, basil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper).

I don’t do separate layers of shredded cheese in this lasagna – so we need to bulk up this filling with some cheese. I used to add a ton of shredded mozzarella in every lasagna layer – it’s cheese, MORE IS BETTER, YES? Ok, YES, but I finally realized having a ton of cheese in each layer makes the lasagna a slip and slide of noodles and cheese. As much as I like slip and slides… not in lasagna. The slices stand up better if you only have cheese in this layer with the cottage cheese and eggs to help it stick together. DON’T WORRY, we’ll add more cheese later, just to the top.

The Tomato Sauce

This is it- THE SAUCE. We need to have good marinara sauce. Use what you like! I have a couple of brands of marinara sauce I love, or if I have time, I’ll make some. EITHER IS FINE. They’re all yummy!

Sauté up some Italian sausage (or mushrooms, if you want this to be vegetarian). Drain any grease off, and then add your sauce to the meat. I usually add more garlic powder, basil, and oregano for good measure, but TASTE YOUR SAUCE and see how you like it! The Italian sausage will add a lot of flavor (and spice) to the sauce, so it’s good to check first. Also, get a spoon and try some because it’s yummy.

The Pasta

This section is going to be short. We are going to use dry lasagna noodles. Either the oven-ready lasagna noodles OR just regular dry lasagna noodles- both work. We are not going to cook them. We are going to take them from the box they came in from the store and put them in the pan. The end.

I am all about recipes where you can throw in the pasta directly without cooking it (like this slow cooker mac and cheese). Having to boil water, cook pasta, drain it… all of a sudden there are SO MANY DISHES and I CAN’T HANDLE IT. HELP.

For a 9×13 inch pan, three noodles fit in the bottom, or you can make two smaller pans (this is what I usually do- two 6×9 inch pans- these are the ones I have) and put 2 noodles in the bottom. Total noodle count – for four layers, a 9×13 pan will need 12 noodles, and the 2 smaller pans will need about 16 total (8 in each pan). For the smaller pans, you have to break the noodles a bit (they don’t quite fit in these smaller pans), but you can always save the ends of your noodles for lasagna soup! (recipe coming soon).

Assemble!

It’s go time! Spread some tomato sauce in the bottom of your pan – about a cup. This is important, because we didn’t cook our lasagna noodles. They need a bunch of sauce down there to cook in. Next, put in the noodles, FROM THE BOX. Uncooked. Here, I’m doing two smaller pans (6×9 inch size), but you’ll do the same thing if you’re doing one larger 9×13 inch pan.

Next, spread some more tomato sauce (about 1/3 cup) on top of the noodle layer, and then a layer (about 1 cup) of the creamy cheese filling. The layers might mix together a little bit, it’s ok. Repeat with more pasta, tomato sauce, and cheese sauce.

I like to do 4 layers total, ending with some tomato sauce. Top it off with a whole bunch of shredded mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. Finally… very important, add a little more sauce around the edges of the pan (about 1/2 cup) AND some water around the edges of the pan. Not too much – we don’t want the lasagna to be soupy, but those noodles need some help cooking. I always pour it around the edges because that’s what tends to get dry otherwise.

Cover that pan TIGHT with foil, and pop it in the oven! Go enjoy a glass of wine with your people you invited over, or an episode of the office, or take it to the freezer if you’re saving it (Future Sloth You is very happy).

After 60 – 75 minutes, take off the foil and let it cook 10 more minutes- wait for the cheese to get all ooey, gooey, bubbly, and delicious. Take it out of the oven, and – this part is very hard – let it rest about 10 minutes before cutting into it. I often do not have the willpower. Your kitchen will smell VERY GOOD now, and you are VERY HUNGRY. However, if you can wait a little bit, it will hold together so much better. Right now, if you cut it, it will be lasagna soup- which still tastes good! But all those pretty layers will stay together better if you let it rest. Also, it is the temperature of the sun and you will burn off every last one of your taste buds if you try to eat it right now. Believe me, I have tried.

Tips for Freezing

This lasagna is great to make ahead for a party (I made a whole bunch one time for my Mom’s surprise 60^th birthday party! I made them ahead of time and froze them) or to just keep in the freezer for a delicious meal you don’t have to babysit.

To freeze it, wrap it really well in foil and then a tight layer of plastic wrap. When you’re ready to cook it, if you can remember to pull it out of the freezer to let it thaw in the fridge the night before, that is best. Then you can follow the regular baking instructions. Howeverrrrr, remembering to pull food out of the freezer can be a STRUGGLE- so you CAN bake it straight from frozen, just make sure you have enough time- closer to 2 hours if it’s totally frozen. ALSO, if I’m going to do this, I freeze it in a disposable foil pan. Don’t bake it straight from frozen in a ceramic pan. You might get lucky and it might be fine, or the pan might crack. Cold pan, hot hot oven do not good friends make. It’s a very sad day when your favorite pan breaks and your lasagna is on the bottom of your oven. Not that I know from experience…

Sloth Shortcuts

To make the easiest, dreamiest, cheesiest Italian sausage lasagna, make sure you follow the Sloth Shortcuts:

Sloth Shortcut #1: Use what you have! If you have ricotta, great. If you have cottage cheese, great. If you’re using cottage cheese, run it through the food processor to get a smooth, creamy texture for your cheese filling.

Sloth Shortcut #2: USE. UNCOOKED. NOODLES. I promise it works! Regular old plain dried lasagna noodles. Or the oven ready ones are fine- they both work. Just don’t forget the extra water to add to the pan, and don’t get stingy with your tomato sauce.

Sloth Shortcut #3: Freeze some of these babies up and pull them out for a weeknight dinner or a party! They freeze so well!

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