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CASSEROLE SEASON number... four? LASAGNA is an OCCASION

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I can’t actually count and stuck some of these in my queue so I’m not sure how many of these I’ve written but that doesn’t matter! You’re not here for numbers! If you are, boy are you in the wrong place.

Anyway– of COURSE Lasagna is a casserole!!! it is like. THE casserole!!!

This one is time-consuming to make because it takes the layers thing to an Extra™ level. I like to make it on a weekend day, but you can bake it days later once it’s assembled! The god-tier level is to make TWO while you’re going to the trouble, and then weeks or months later you can pull the second one out of the freezer and TREAT YO SELF.

I also like to make fresh bread to go alongside this. It doesn’t need it, but it deserves it. Fresh bread and like a bottle of reasonable red wine and this is your Date With Yourself night. (I don’t recommend this for an actual date night if you want to get laid tho because you’re going to overeat. Listen this is the reality of surviving to middle age, you really don’t want to bone down on an uncomfortably full stomach. But that’s not relevant here, we’re moving right along.

There are so many lasagna recipes on the Internet, but I promise mine is better because you do not need to precook the noodles, I have never precooked a noodle, I have eaten other people’s lasagnas where they precooked the noodles and guess what. Not better. Don’t precook your noodles. Love yourself. It’s fine. Just make sure you give it fifteen minutes to set up before you cut into it. It’s part of the ceremony. Just believe me.

LASAGNA, AS MADE BY MY MAYFLOWER-SOCIETY-WHITE MOM, AS RECOUNTED BY MY ADHD ASS: (my point being, there’s no claim to Italian-ness here, just Appreciators of Tasty)

Get a box of lasagna noodles, a pound of mozzarella, a pound of ricotta, a jar of good red sauce in a flavor you like, and an oven-safe dish (this will fill a 9x12, but i prefer to do it in 2 2-quart pyrexes, or i have this weird deep baking dish that came to me without a lid and without any information that doesn’t match anything else I own).

Optionally, get some vegetables. I like an onion, a head of garlic, and like a bunch of spinach or kale or something green like that.

Also optionally, get some meat– either ground beef or bulk Italian sausage is the norm, but I’ve had this with ground moose and it was awesome. There was a weird series of events that led to the moose, all right. Venison works well too– the red sauce is strongly flavored so if venison is usually too gamey for you, it melds better here than in a more delicate dish.

Also optionally, have a bunch of parmesan cheese grated on hand because you want that on top because more kinds of cheese is better.

DON’T cook the noodles.

I like to amend my sauce by sauteeing the onion and garlic in oil, then mixing the sauce in and letting it simmer while I get everything else ready. You’re going to want to shred that mozzarella, or slice it finely if it’s a block. Get your stuff all out, prepare your workspace, maybe pour yourself a glass of wine. You can preheat the oven if you’re cold, it’s a good excuse. Put some music on. (Actually usually the first thing I do is clean the kitchen since I’m usually doing this on a weekend, so. I get cozy, in there.)

If I have meat in this, usually I will sautee it with the onion and then simmer it in the sauce. So your sauce and meat are a single substance as you do your layering. Other people don’t, they keep the meat separate so it can be in its own isolated layer. That’s super valid and if it floats your boat, do it. Lasagna is a feeling, you know? A party, kinda. An Occasion, yeah that’s it! Lasagna is an Occasion. That’s my title for this.

So, now you’re ready to start, now that your meat’s cooked and your sauce is to your liking and your cheese is shredded. Optionally, you’ll want to sautee your spinach or kale with some more garlic, and maybe make sure it’s not too soggy if it was frozen spinach, but I’ve never had it be too soggy. I have thrown frozen spinach in there still frozen, it’s fine. Uncooked noodles are more forgiving about this, because they’ll absorb liquid and you don’t wind up with a soupy lasagna as easily.

SO. Get your baking dish. Put a ladle full of sauce in the bottom, just enough to make a thin layer. Take your UNCOOKED noodles and lay them flat in a layer all facing one direction as much as possible. Break them if you need to, to make them fit. I sort of jigsaw-puzzle the thing into as consistent a single layer as possible, but you don’t have to freak out.

Then the order you put the layers is up to you. More thinner layers, fewer thicker layers– it’s dictated by your pan. You want them to be as distinct as possible, and there are certain orders that just won’t work well. (You can’t spread ricotta directly on sauce and have it not mix in, for example.)

So I usually start with spinach, then sauce, then noodles faced the other way as much as possible, then ricotta, then mozzarella, then the rest of the spinach, then noodles faced back the first way, then ricotta, then mozzarella, then sauce, and usually by then my pan is full. You want the last layer to be sauce, then the last bits of mozzarella, and then you put the parmesan all over it.

You are of course welcome to call an audible at any time and vary the order of the layers, and if you’ve kept the meat separate well then you’ve got more logistics. Just– noodles on the bottom with just some sauce to cook in, and noodles on top then sauce and garnish cheese. Everything else in the middle is artistic interpretation, though likely someone’s grandmother has written a definitive thesis on how it ought to go.

I’m quite certain my mother’s recipe had a definitive order written down as well, but my dumb ass can’t actually remember it for the duration of turning my head from the page, and so at this point it’s been years since I looked and I could not tell you at gunpoint what it actually said. But I’ve never had a lasagna turn out badly.

NOW the COOKING

You need to put the lasagna in a 350-degree oven (preheat it if you’re starting from room temp but you can forgo the preheating if you’re starting with a refrigerated lasagna, just allow however many extra minutes your oven takes to get hot).

COVER it for the first half hour to 45 minutes. If your dish does not have a lid, use aluminum foil. If your dish is VERY FULL, put a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan underneath to catch drips. Sometimes lasagnas get excited.

Then, UNCOVER it to cook for the last 15 minutes to half an hour, so your cheese gets bubbly and browned on top.

You will know the lasagna is done when it is bubbling all through. This is easier to tell in a glass dish, of course, but you can kinda tell by looking at the edges of an opaque pan.

Take it out of the oven, cover it, and LET IT SIT FIFTEEN MINUTES. This is a SACRED RITUAL. This is when you open your wine if it’s not already, this is when you toast your garlic bread if it wasn’t already, set your table, light your candles, perform your rituals, summon your children or spirits or whatever.

Once the lasagna has sat in contemplation of its deeds, and most importantly has firmed up and is not so soupy, THEN you may cut it. The first piece will fall apart and this one goes to the cook, that’s tradition. The other pieces will probably hold together. If they don’t, if anyone objects, they don’t get to eat it. I cannot overstate how good your house is going to smell at this point; nobody is going to object.

This makes FANTASTIC leftovers. And it remains an Occasion to eat, even as leftovers. So. Love yourself, make lasagna. (Your picture was not posted)