I'm fully convinced this is the best lasagna recipe ever. Granted, I've never prepared a lasagna from a different recipe, but I've certainly eaten lasagnas made from other recipes, and this one takes the cake. Plus I have a had time believing that there could be an easier lasagna recipe to put together; I did this one in about 20 minutes, and it would have gone faster if I hadn't been trying to keep a one-year-old from destroying our house at the time. And would you be surprised if I mentioned that this recipe is also great for leftovers? We usually make it on a Sunday or Monday and have lunches for the whole week; and it's just as good on Friday as it was on Monday. The next thing I want to try with this recipe is freezing it and reheating in the oven. I think this would be a great dish to take to a family with a newborn, and I love the idea of taking it over pre-cooked and frozen so all they would have to do is heat it up in the oven and enjoy. I know that this isn't a new concept, but I bet this would be tastier (and healthier) than those Stouffer's varieties!
Mom's No-Boil Lasagna
(from Mama Shirley)
1 15 or 16oz container Ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 (26oz) jars pasta sauce, combined with 1/2 cup water
1 lb lean ground beef, cooked and drained
4 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 eggs
1 package uncooked lasagna noodles
Chopped parsley
In a bowl, combine Ricotta, Parmesan, and eggs; mix well. On the bottom of a 15x9-inch greased baking dish (or 9x13 if you break the noodles to fit) spread 1 cup of the pasta sauce. Top with half each of the uncooked lasagna noodles, Ricotta cheese mixture, beef, remaining pasta sauce, and mozzarella. Repeat layering. Top with parsley. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake 1 hour at 350* or until hot and bubbly. Let stand covered 15 minutes before serving.
A few tricks of the trade that I've learned after making this a few times:
--I don't like to dirty a lot of dishes when I cook. So instead of pouring the pasta sauce into a bowl and mixing it with the water, when I pour the pasta sauce into the bottom of the pan I pour about half a cup from each jar and then add a quarter up water back into the jar and mix those up. Then it's just one jar per layer and no extra dishes!
--We've always used a 9x13 pan. And I don't know if we just by super big boxes of noodles or if the smaller pan really cuts out that many noodles, but we only ever use half the box. We tried using the whole box one time, but our noodle layers ended up being double-thick, and it just didn't cook as well. So we just spread the noodles out to fill the layer as evenly as we can and keep the rest for next time.
If you've never made lasagna before because you've been too intimidated by it, then this is definitely the recipe for you! And even if you've tried making it but been frustrated by the amount of work (I've seen some of the recipes out there--I stay the heck away from those!), then you should really give this one a shot. Trust me, you'll be disappointed if you don't!
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