lasagna for two

lasagna

I’ve been working longer days the past few weeks. This means I get out of work late, much later than BF would like, because it means I don’t have quite as much time to make dinner before he’s ready to chew his own leg off. In order to keep all of BF’s limbs attached, I’ve made an effort to pre-make at least one meal a week. Sometimes he’s even lucky enough for me to make one of his favorite things : Lasagna.

Who doesn’t love lasagna? The best part is, I can make it all the day before. I just refrigerate it overnight, and then BF pops it in the oven towards the end of my shift. Voila – dinner is ready by the time I get home. As an added bonus – BF gets to feel like he made dinner that night. 🙂

I almost didn’t post the recipe, since it uses a jar sauce, so I kinda feel like it isn’t REALLY a “recipe”. Then I figured, who doesn’t have days where they get home from work too exhausted or too late to make dinner? And who doesn’t resort to jarred sauces once in awhile? Especially if you can find one you like (for me – that’s Trader Joe’s Bolognese).

Since we’re a small family of two (sometimes three) people, I make mine in  a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan, and it’s still enough to feed us for a couple of meals. If you want to make more, just use a larger pan, or if you want to make some for later, just make an additional batch in one of those foil loaf pans and store it in the freezer until the mood strikes. (Or, in my case, to feed the boy if I have to leave town for work).

Just try to mangle yours slightly less when it’s time for your photo-op 🙂

Lasagna for TwoMakes one 9 x 5-inch loaf of lasagna

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • ½ (1.25 lb) package Italian turkey sausage (sweet or hot)
  • ½ lb lean ground beef
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce
  • 1 package no-boil lasagna noodles
  • 1 package whole milk ricotta (trust me on this, please don’t use skim. If you’re going to use skim, just skip the ricotta altogether)
  • 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (or a couple sprinkles each of basil and oregano)
  • Shredded Italian cheese
  • Salt and pepper
  1. Remove sausage from casings and cook with ground beef in a sauté pan over medium-high until brown. Add onion and continue cooking until soft. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in your jar of sauce and lower heat to simmer.
  2. While sauce is simmering, mix Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper into the ricotta. (If you have milk or cream on hand, you can add a splash or two to thin the ricotta just a little bit). Set aside.
  3. Assemble the lasagna: Put just enough sauce to coat the bottom of the loaf pan, and place a lasagna noodle on top. Scoop meat sauce mixture into a layer over top.Spread ricotta mixture onto one side of another lasagna noodle, place ricotta side down into pan. Top with more meat sauce, and repeat until you’re out of room.Once you’ve reached your last noodle, add your remaining meat sauce and sprinkle with Italian cheese. Feel free to grate some parmesan over top, maybe sprinkle some Italian seasoning.
  4. Now you can either – bake in a 375 degree oven until cheese is hot and bubbly (about 30 minutes) OR cool, cover, and refrigerate.

To bake from refrigerated, take out of the fridge while the oven preheats to 375. Once the oven is preheated, bake the lasagna, covered with foil, 40 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake additional 15 minutes or so until cheese is hot and bubbly

TIPS

– Grease your pan or, if you’re extra lazy like me, just line it with aluminum foil for easy cleanup.

– Adding fresh parmesan on top will encourage browning. If you think it’s ready but it just won’t get brown enough, feel free to pop the broiler on for a minute or so.

– Another trick – Keep a baguette in your freezer. Let the baguette sit, wrapped in foil, at room temperature while the lasagna bakes, then throw it into the oven for the last 15-20 minutes or so of baking and it will be just as good as new.  

11 thoughts on “lasagna for two

  1. Couple more questions!

    1. I want to make this in a 9×13. Do you think I need to double the recipe or just have thinner layers?

    2. Have you ever tried adding cheese also in between the layers?

    3. When I made this last week, I made it fresh and then baked it right away. The noodles weren’t cooked enough though (still kinda hard). Have you had a problem with this before?

    Sorry to overload you with questions. My husband and I really enjoyed your lasagna. He thought it was even better then his Mom’s!

    • Jessica,

      I’m glad that you and your husband enjoyed the recipe! 🙂 And feel free to ask away, that’s what I’m here for! Hope my reply is fast enough today!

      1. If you’re going from a 9×5 to a 9×13 I would suggest tripling the recipe, you will probably have some filling left over, but I would rather have too much than too little. You could make thinner layers, but I don’t think a flat lasagna would do well in our house 😉 I usually double the recipe to make in a 9×9 pan.
      If you don’t want to make triple the ingredients, I’m sure you would be fine doubling the meat (so using the whole packages instead of halves) and just throwing in more sauce if needed to get more filling for less work.

      2. I have definitely added cheese between the layers as well, it can be good but sometimes I find it interferes with the noodles’ absorption. I think I was able to work around it by layering sauce>noodle>sauce>cheese>ricotta … but I’m usually too lazy and forgetful to remember exactly how I circumvented it and just throw it on top.

      3. I’ve never had the noodles actually hard still, but I’ve had them less soft than I’d like them to be. Double check your box to make sure that you are using the “no boil” lasagna noodles. If you’re still getting hard noodles, it’s usually one of two things:
      – A layering issue (not enough liquid ingredients around the noodle)
      – A baking time issue. Try baking just a little longer (5 or 10 minutes), if your cheese is browning faster than you’d like, just cover the lasagna with foil to protect the cheese.

      • Thank for getting back to me!

        I’m probably going to try just doubling the recipe and using a smaller pan. I am making it for a friend who just had twins, so there’s 3 adults and 3 kids to feed. I figured that would be enough and give them some leftovers also. When you’ve doubled the recipe, how much cook time do you add one?

        I’m going to try and add some chesse in and see how it goes!

        Also, I miss typed about my noodles. They weren’t hard just not as soft and I would’ve liked.

        Do you have a secret to see if the noodles are done? That’s one of the hard thing about making lasagna. I always have a hard time knowing if they’re cooked enough!

        Thanks again for your help!

        • Unfortunately I don’t have a “trick”…

          I would suggest making sure that you have enough liquid around the noodles (that’s what is helping them cook) and making sure that the sauce is bubbly before you take it out of the oven. Try extending the cooking time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes, just cover it with foil if the cheese starts to get more brown than you’d like.

          You could also check your noodle’s packaging and see if the cooking time/temp is listed differently. It’s possible that they are a different thickness or something…

    • I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t work. I would either bake it slightly less time (since the noodles will already be cooked) or slightly undercook the noodles before layering. 🙂

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