Half Baked Cooks: World's Best Lasagna

I came across this recipe on allrecipes.com. With a five star rating from over eight thousand reviewers, I figured it would be worth trying. I was right!

The original recipe can be found here: World's Best Lasagna

I followed the recipe pretty closely, making a few minor changes here and there.

For my lasagna I used the following:

1 pound sweet Italian sausage
3/4 pound ground beef (80/20)
1/2 cup minced onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 (8 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 tablespoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
12 lasagna noodles
16 ounces ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced
3/4 cup grated Parmesan & Romano cheese

The recipe calls for you to brown the meat in a dutch oven and then add the tomato sauces and other ingredients to the same pot. Instead, I browned the meat in a frying pan and then transferred to a large pot. I didn't want to include all of the fat from the meat mixture, so this allowed me the opportunity to drain the grease before adding the final ingredients.

So I added the tomatoes - crushed, sauce, and paste - and 1/2 cup water to a 6-quart pot, and then added the cooked and strained meat mixture. I turned the heat to medium.

While the sauce was warming up, I prepared the remaining ingredients.

The recipe calls for dried basil but I used fresh basil leaves from the garden. I chopped both the basil and the parsley by grabbing a small chunk of leaves, twisting gently, and slicing into thin strips. Then I chopped the strips into smaller pieces and repeated as necessary until I had the right amount.

I added all remaining ingredients to the meat sauce and brought the heat down a little. I covered the sauce as directed and let simmer for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.

This is one of my favorite parts about cooking lasagna - there is so much down time you can get lots of other things done around the house! I cleaned the dishes I had made, did a load of laundry, and wrote a blog entry all while the sauce was cooking. Talk about productivity!

So after about an hour and a half, I removed the meat sauce from the heat entirely and set aside. I boiled water with a dash of salt and a splash of olive oil. Once boiling I added the noodles and cooked for 8-10 minutes. When they were done to my satisfaction, I immediately drained the water from the pot and ran cold water over them as directed.

Now we are finally ready for the fun part - layering the lasagna! Make sure to preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

I added each layer according to the recipe; starting with meat sauce, then noodles, then half the ricotta mixture.

I added 1/3 of the mozzarella cheese slices, which I unintentionally broke into pieces when dividing my slices. Then I added more meat sauce and a thin layer of Parmesan & Romano cheese.