Homemade lasagna, recipe for making a delicious pie

Italy is the birthplace of great artists, architecture and, of course, the famous Italian cuisine. What would Italian cuisine be without the well-known lasagna? Today there will be perhaps the most classic Italian lasagna recipe. In this article we will talk about how you can quickly and tasty cook lasagna with minced meat without spending a lot of effort. To prepare lasagna at home, you will need no more than 1 hour in the kitchen, but you will definitely be satisfied with the prepared dish. Lasagna with minced meat is a classic Italian dish. Lasagna is usually prepared with beef or pork, but you can use any other minced meat, but lasagna with minced beef will be more tender. Italians prefer to cook it at home, as homemade lasagna turns out tastier.

Homeland - Italy

The following facts speak in favor of the Italian roots of the dish:

The inhabitants of Rome adopted the recipe for making a round, flattened flatbread (this is what lasagna previously looked like) from the Greeks. The Romans cut the finished flatbread into strips and called them Lagani.
The second version also sees traces of the Greeks in the origin of the dish, but at the same time claims that the name came from the vessel, the pot stove in which the food was prepared - Lasanon.

Years passed, and the name was modified into Lasanum, which is familiar to modern people.

Lasagna with minced meat and mushrooms in the oven in a hurry at home

Due to the fact that mushrooms themselves are very nutritious, in order not to make a dish that is too rich and difficult to digest, experts advise using minced chicken and replacing traditional Bechamel with green pesto sauce.

Compound:

Lasagna sheets - 10 pcs.
Olive oil – 100 ml
Pine nuts (kernels) – 25 g
Fresh basil – 30 g
Parmesan – 20 g
Garlic cloves - 1 pc.
Minced chicken - 300 g
Champignons – 200 g
Salt, pepper - to taste
Soft cheese (any) - 180 g
Tomato paste – 120 ml

Preparation:

The most important point that determines the final result is the sauce. Peel and chop the garlic clove, tear the basil leaves with your hands, combine with pine nut kernels, chop in a blender bowl or crush well with a pestle. Add olive oil and grated Parmesan, go through the pestle again or turn on the mixer. Leave the sauce for 30-60 minutes.
Mix the minced chicken with seasonings, place in a frying pan, add a little water and simmer for 10-15 minutes. After this, add tomato paste to the meat and simmer under the lid over low heat for another 10 minutes. Chop the champignons and fry in a dry non-stick frying pan.
Cover the bottom of the baking dish with sheets of dough, spread the pesto sauce, mushrooms and minced meat on top, place a new sheet of dough and repeat the procedure. Sprinkle grated soft cheese onto the last sheet.

Bake the lasagna in an oven preheated to 190 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduce the power to 160 degrees and cook for another 20 minutes.

Homeland - England

The arguments of the British who consider lasagna to be their dish have the following grounds: in the 14th century in England there was a dish called Loseyns. The recipe is even mentioned in one of the oldest books in the country.

No matter what, the authorship still remains with Naples. It was there that the first mention of how to prepare delicious lasagna at home was found. The recipe indicated that the layers of dough, boiled until half cooked, must be layered with a mixture of cheese and spices.

Over almost eight centuries of existence, the recipe for making lasagna has undergone numerous changes, but one thing has remained unchanged - the excellent soft and pleasant taste of the finished dish.

Now every housewife is probably thinking about how to cook lasagna at home.

We act step by step. How to cook lasagna

The photos showing how to make this dish perfectly illustrate the ease of the process. But for the holiday version, we will complicate it a little and make a special Bolognese minced meat. How to cook lasagna with this filling?

Step #1: Heat a mixture of olive oil and butter in a frying pan.

Step #2: Fry finely chopped bacon and prosciutto.

Step No. 3. In just a minute, add chopped vegetables (except tomatoes and mushrooms). Simmer them over low heat until they soften.

Step No. 4. Lay out the minced meat. While they are cooking, add broth and wine. We continue to simmer all this until it thickens.

Step No. 5. Add tomatoes, nutmeg and cloves. If necessary, you can add hot water. This mixture should simmer for 45 minutes over low heat.

Step No. 6. Finally, add the remaining ingredients and - before turning off the heat - cream.

Method for preparing lasagna dough

The following recipe will help you learn how to make lasagne sheets at home. Homemade sheets, of course, are more troublesome, but less expensive and, more importantly, healthier than store-bought ones.

What you will need:

400 grams of wheat flour;
3 eggs;
50 milliliters of olive oil;
a teaspoon of salt.

Making lasagna at home! A step-by-step recipe for lasagna dough is presented below.

Step one. Mix all ingredients at the same time.

Step two. Mix the dough. Of course, it is ideal to do this with a mixer, but you can also do it manually. The dough should be cool. The whole process will take half an hour - when kneading by hand.

Step three. Place the dough in a cold place for twenty minutes. This will help it become more elastic.

Step four. To prevent the dough from sticking to your hands, knead it by adding a little flour. After this, roll it out into a layer 2 millimeters thick.

Step five. Boil the lasagna sheets in salted water for one minute. We finish everything by dipping the sheets in cold water and oil. Place the boiled leaves on a sieve to drain the water. To prevent them from drying out while preparing other ingredients, you can place them on a damp towel.

That's it: the lasagna sheets are completely ready. It's just a matter of the filling and the sauce, but we'll get back to this point a little later.

Cooking features

They work like this:

First prepare the Bolognese sauce. The onion is peeled and chopped. The garlic is peeled and chopped. In a frying pan heated with vegetable oil, fry the garlic and onion for about 3 minutes. Add the minced meat and fry, stirring regularly and kneading with a fork for 10 minutes. Remove the skin from the tomatoes and grind them in a blender with Tabasco sauce, tomato paste, pepper and salt. The finished Bolognese sauce is added to the minced meat, covered with a lid and, stirring, cooked for about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, add herbs, stir and cover with a lid.
Then prepare the bechamel sauce. Milk is heated in the microwave. Melt a little butter (butter) in a saucepan. Add flour and cook with constant stirring. Gradually pour in the milk (you must stir constantly to prevent lumps from forming). Cook over low heat for approximately 5 minutes. The consistency of the sauce should resemble thick sour cream. One third of the resulting bechamel sauce is added to the bolognese.
Then pour water into a deep frying pan, add a little salt and vegetable oil. Bring to a boil. Boil the lasagna sheets for 1-2 minutes (it is better to boil two sheets at a time, otherwise they may stick together). Remove the sheets from the boiling water and immediately place them in a bowl of (cold) water.
Grease a baking tray with oil and place lasagna sheets on it. Next, lay out the Bolognese sauce, then sprinkle with cheese (grated). Add another layer of lasagna, cheese and bolognese sauce. Alternate layers in this manner until all the sauce and all the lasagna sheets are used. The last layer is laid out with sheets of bechamel sauce.
Lasagna with cheese is baked in an oven preheated to 200 °C for 40–50 minutes until a golden brown crust forms. Remove the finished dish from the oven and cool for about 15 minutes.

Recipe based on ready-made lasagne sheets

Of course, making lasagna dough at home is not difficult, but you must admit, it takes a lot of time, which many housewives simply don’t have. That is why large supermarkets are rushing to the rescue, offering a fairly large assortment of ready-made products.

This recipe contains information on how to easily make lasagna at home using store-bought lasagne sheets.

What you will need:

700 grams of beef or veal meat;
1 onion;
1 large bell pepper;
800 grams of blanched tomatoes;
100 grams of tomato paste;
2 cloves of garlic;
50 grams of flour;
50 grams of butter;
600 milliliters of milk;
a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg;
500 grams of hard cheese;
250 grams of dough;
We take seasonings to taste - oregano, basil, Provençal herbs.

The set of products presented above allows you to achieve the delicious classic taste of Bolognese lasagna.

So, how to make lasagna at home? Read on for the step-by-step recipe!

Chicken recipe

This delicate and simple dish is prepared very quickly, and its taste will definitely delight both guests and family. Ingredients: 12 sheets of dough, 1 tbsp. heavy cream, chicken breast, half a stick of butter, 900 ml of milk, 3 large spoons of flour, 300 g of any hard cheese and 130 g of Parmesan, a pinch of nutmeg, salt.

Poultry fillet is boiled in salted water and finely chopped.
Both types of cheese are grated on a coarse grater.
The chicken is poured with cream and simmered in a frying pan until the liquid thickens. You can immediately add salt to taste.
To make the sauce, flour is fried in melted butter (until golden), then hot milk is poured into the ingredients. The ingredients are mixed well so that no lumps appear.
The sauce is seasoned with salt and nutmeg and then simmered until it thickens.
The mold is greased with the resulting mixture. Next, the first sheet of dough is laid out on it. The layers will be as follows: dough - chicken - two types of cheese - sauce. They repeat until the food runs out.
Bake for 55 minutes in a very hot oven.

The finished dish is served with chopped herbs.

Filling: meat ragu Bolognese

Step one. Grind the meat into minced meat using a meat grinder. It is better to use a mixture of beef and veal. In this case, the dish will be softer and more tender. Why is it so important to pulverize the meat yourself? Is it really impossible to make lasagna at home from store-bought minced meat? It turns out you can't. Or rather, it is possible, but the taste of the finished dish is unlikely to please you, since the quality of a store-bought product always leaves much to be desired. And since the mince is the main part of the bolognese sauce, it has to be perfect.

Step two. Finely chop vegetables, including onions, garlic and bell peppers.

Step three. Let's start sautéing chopped vegetables. We do this in a frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom. Fry in sunflower or olive oil.

Step four. When the onion becomes transparent, add minced minced meat to the vegetables.

Step five. While the minced meat reaches the state we need (determined by the shade - the minced meat should turn grey), let's deal with the blanched tomatoes. They need to be peeled and mashed into a puree.

Step six. Combine the minced meat with vegetables and crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and oregano.

Step seven. Simmer until the excess juice is gone.

As a result, we get an excellent filling for lasagna - meat bolognese.

Now let's start preparing the sauce.

Classic Italian lasagna with minced meat

According to this recipe, the filling for the treat in question will be based on minced beef. Take half a kilo of it. Other ingredients: 14 sheets of dough, 420 ml of tomato sauce, onion, 70 g of Parmesan, half a stick of butter, 2 large spoons of flour, 4 tbsp. fat milk, salt.

To prepare the sauce, flour is fried in butter. Milk is slowly poured into the resulting mass. After boiling, the liquid is cooked for 12-14 minutes until thickened. You can add salt and white pepper to taste.
The minced meat is finely kneaded with a fork and fried with onion cubes. Next, it is poured with tomato sauce and simmered for about 20 minutes.
Layered sheets of dough - sauce - meat filling - grated parmesan are laid out in a greased form. They repeat until the food runs out. The last layer will turn out cheesy.

Lasagna with minced meat is baked in the oven for 25 minutes.

Bechamel sauce: step-by-step recipe

It is almost impossible to prepare lasagna at home if you do not know the basics of mixing bechamel sauce. But don't be alarmed - the process is not as difficult as it might seem.

Step one. Melt fifty grams of butter in a saucepan. Add fifty grams of flour to it. Mix well and fry: the flour should acquire a beautiful golden hue. It is important to constantly monitor the condition of the ingredients in the pan, not forgetting to stir: otherwise, burning will occur. When the flour turns golden, the lasagna “roux” is ready.

Step two. Now milk. It must be heated in another saucepan.

Step three. Pour milk into the saucepan with the prepared “roux” in a thin stream. Important conditions: minimum heat, constant stirring.

Step four. Add nutmeg, mix again with a whisk and remove from heat.

That's it: the béchamel sauce is ready.

Let's start assembling the lasagna.

Lasagna with cheese: cooking basics

Modern lasagna is made from several layers of dough. Each of them is filled with a filling, for which mushrooms, minced meat or vegetables are used. Each of the layers is poured with bechamel sauce, and the treat is sprinkled with grated cheese on top.

Most often, Italians use cheeses such as Parmesan, mozzarella and ricotta to prepare the dish. The classic combination of mozzarella and Parmesan makes lasagna juicy and tender, while the use of these two types of cheese gives the dish a special aroma and spiciness. However, experts do not recommend limiting yourself to strict limits. Parmesan is only required to create the classic lasagna bolognese. But sometimes it is replaced with another hard cheese, which is necessary to form a crispy golden crust. Any type of this product is suitable for lasagna; soft (creamy) cheeses go especially well with aged hard cheeses, which have a sharp taste and sharp aroma. For example, mozzarella can also be replaced with other types of cheese (soft), for example, feta cheese or suluguni.

Lasagna dough with cheese is made from durum wheat flour used to create pasta. The dough layers are sold as dry sheets. The dish is baked in the oven at t = 220 °C for half an hour.

Assembling lasagna

Lightly boil the finished lasagna sheets in salted water. Then we begin to lay out the dish in layers.

Step one. Lightly coat the bottom of the baking dish with bechamel sauce. Sprinkle with a thin layer of grated cheese.

Step two. Place a sheet of dough on top. Coat with bechamel sauce.

Step three. Spread a thin layer of Bolognese onto the dough.

Step four. More cheese and dough.

Step five. You should get about five layers, the last of which should be coated with sauce and sprinkled with cheese.

Cover the assembled lasagna with foil on top and put it in the oven to bake. The baking process at 220 degrees and the presence of foil will take half an hour. After this time, remove the foil and leave the dish to bake for another ten minutes.

Appetizing, rosy and juicy lasagna is ready!

Vegetarian lasagna with pumpkin seeds

For 4 servings you will need:

12 lasagna sheets;
salt;
3 zucchini;
2 cloves of garlic;
1 onion;
1 tbsp. spoon of vegetable oil;
600 g canned tomatoes in pieces;
ground black pepper;
2 tbsp. spoons of chopped basil;
250 g mozzarella;
75 g grated cheese;
100 g each of red and yellow cherry tomatoes;
3 tbsp. spoons of peeled pumpkin seeds.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Boil the lasagna sheets in salted water for 5 minutes, transfer to a container with cold water and a small amount of vegetable oil. Let cool.

Wash the zucchini and cut into thin longitudinal slices. Peel the onion and garlic, chop and lightly fry in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook over low heat for 4-5 minutes. Stir in the greens. Cut the mozzarella into thin slices.

Pour some tomato sauce into the pan and then layer the lasagna sheets, zucchini, tomato sauce and mozzarella until the top layer is lasagne sheets. Pour the remaining sauce over them and sprinkle with cheese. Place halved tomatoes on top. Bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve sprinkled with seeds.

Cooking time: 1 hour 20 minutes

620 kcal per serving

Lasagna with vegetable sauce and sour cream sauce

In the hot summer season, when meat is seen as a heavy and fatty product, you can prepare lasagna with vegetables. Similar to meat, it will contain bechamel sauce. Well, are you ready to learn how to make lasagna at home? The recipe is quite simple and will not make you stand at the stove for a long time. You will need about half an hour of free time. And from the start of preparation to the long-awaited tasting, only an hour and a half will pass.

What do you need to make vegetable lasagna?

For the base:

12 sheets of ready-made or homemade pasta;
50 grams of hard cheese (preferably Parmesan).

For the vegetable sauce:

1 medium sized zucchini;
2 sweet bell peppers;
3 ripe tomatoes;
1 carrot;
3 cloves of garlic;
1 onion;
50 milliliters of olive oil;
several sprigs of herbs (parsley, dill).
50 milliliters of dry white wine;
We take spices to taste: herbes de Provence, nutmeg, basil, oregano, savory;
a teaspoon of sugar;

For sour cream sauce:

20 grams of butter;
10 grams of flour;
half a glass of sour cream;
a glass of meat or vegetable broth;
salt and ground pepper.

Lasagna with cottage cheese and herbs

Required:

9 sheets of lasagne;
400 g cottage cheese;
130 g Parmesan cheese;
120 g mozzarella cheese;
300 g tomatoes;
dried basil;
2 tbsp. spoons of chopped parsley and 1 tbsp. spoon of cilantro;
salt pepper;
vegetable oil for greasing the mold.

Prepare the filling. To do this, grate the Parmesan cheese. Combine 100 g of cheese with cottage cheese. Add chopped herbs, salt, pepper and stir. For the sauce, scald the tomatoes, rinse them with cold water, cut the skin and peel them. Grind the pulp with a blender, add dried basil, salt, place in a frying pan, pour in a little water and heat over low heat.

Cut the mozzarella cheese into slices. Boil the lasagna sheets in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes. Drain in a colander. Grease a square glass pan with butter, place 3 lasagna sheets overlapping, and top with half the filling. Pour over 1/3 of the sauce. Then add back the lasagna sheets, the remaining filling, half of the remaining sauce and the mozzarella cheese slices. Cover them with sheets of dough, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan (30 g) and pour over the sauce. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees for about half an hour.

Step-by-step recipe for vegetable sauce for lasagna

If you are thinking about how to cook lasagna at home, and intend to cook vegetable lasagna, then the sauce recipe described below will be a real lifesaver. Its advantage is its unparalleled taste along with simplicity and speed of preparation.

How to cook lasagna at home? Photos used as illustrations and detailed recipes will help housewives create this culinary masterpiece! So let's get started!

Step one. Peel vegetables, including zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. This way the structure of the sauce will be more delicate and homogeneous.

How to peel peppers? The surface of the pepper must be coated with oil and pierced in one place with a knife. And, placing on a plate, bake in the microwave at full power for 6 minutes. Don't have that kitchen helper? Place the fruit in the oven.

Peeling tomatoes is also not difficult: make a cross-shaped cut from the “butt” side and pour boiling water over the vegetable. After this procedure, the skin will be easily removed.

Step two. Chop the onion into small cubes. Place in a frying pan with olive oil and stir until transparent. A golden tint is not only undesirable, but not recommended: remember that the lasagna will subsequently be baked in the oven.

Step three. Add the carrots, chopped through a grater, to the onion and sauté.

Step four. Finely chop the tomatoes and peppers, peeled and seeded, and add them to the frying pan with the onions and carrots.

Step five. Add spices: oregano, basil, savory. Also now you need to add garlic to the frying pan: chop it through a crusher.

Step six. It's time for wine and finely chopped greens. By the way, wine can be replaced with broth or even plain water if you are against alcohol. Simmer over low heat for a quarter of an hour.

Step seven. Place finely chopped zucchini, peeled and seeded, into a frying pan and simmer for another half hour.

After half an hour, the vegetable sauce or, as you may think, the classic vegetable stew is completely ready. The main condition is that the liquid in the sauce must be present only in the form of vegetable juice; any other liquid is unacceptable. Otherwise the lasagna will float.

Cheddar Lasagna Recipe

Calorie content per serving – 872 kcal. Nutritional value is:

proteins – 40.6 g;

fat - 49.1 g;

carbohydrates - 65.4 g.

Contains:

one tablespoon of olive oil;

onion head;

750 g minced beef;

Two stalks of celery;

400 g canned tomatoes;

two tablespoons of tomato paste;

one teaspoon of sugar;

60 g butter (butter);

one tablespoon of Provençal herbs;

three tablespoons of wheat flour;

milk (750 ml)

375 g lasagna sheets (prepared dry);

125 grams of cheddar cheese.

Sour cream sauce

How to cook lasagna with sour cream sauce at home? Just like any other. The only difference is the sauce.

Step one. Melt the butter in a frying pan and immediately add flour to it: bring it to an appetizing golden hue.

Step two. Add broth to flour. Stir until completely homogeneous.

Step three. Now add sour cream and mix again. Cook over low heat for about seven minutes.

All that remains is to season to taste - and the sour cream sauce will be completely ready.

Vegetable lasagna

To prepare 9 servings of the dish you will need:

250 g eggplant;

250 g zucchini;

tomato;

pepper (red sweet);

pepper (yellow sweet);

two carrots;

to taste - salt and pepper (ground);

milk (600 ml);

40 g flour (wheat);

40 g butter (butter);

200 g cheese;

15 pieces of lasagne sheets (prepared dry).

The calorie content of the dish is 234 kcal. It contains 10.3 g of protein, 13 g of fat, and 19.3 g of carbohydrates.

Collecting vegetable paste

Since the recipe indicates the use of ready-made sheets, it is worth mentioning that when boiled they do not stick together, so it is permissible to boil them together.

Important! Choose a baking dish 20% wider than uncooked pasta - the sheets swell and enlarge during cooking.

Let's start assembling the lasagna!

Step one. Grease the baking dish with butter, then spread two tablespoons of vegetable sauce along the bottom - this step will help protect the sheets from burning and sticking.

Step two. We visually divide the sauces - sour cream and vegetable - into five parts (there will be five layers in the lasagne).

Step three. Place two sheets of boiled pasta on top of the vegetable sauce, one after the other.

Step four. Coat the pasta with sour cream sauce, which, in turn, is covered with a layer of vegetable sauce.

Step five. Coat the last layer with sour cream sauce only. We do this carefully and, if the amount of sauce allows, in a thick layer.

Step six. Sprinkle everything on top with grated cheese.

After half an hour of baking at 220 degrees, remove the vegetable lasagne from the oven.

This step-by-step recipe has come to its logical conclusion. Now you know how to cook lasagna at home, you can begin to consolidate your knowledge in practice!

Variegated lasagna with chicken

For 4 servings you will need:

300 g carrots;
1 onion;
70 g butter;
150 g frozen green peas;
250 ml broth;
350 g frozen green beans;
salt;
400 g chicken fillet;
oregano and ground black pepper to taste;
30 g flour;
200 ml milk;
125 ml cream;
150 g grated cheese;
9 sheets of lasagne.

Wash the carrots, peel and cut into circles. Peel and chop the onion. Fry the vegetables for 3 minutes in 10 g of butter. Add the peas, pour in the broth and cook for 10 minutes.

Blanch green beans for 5 minutes in boiling water. Wash the chicken fillet, dry it, cut it into pieces and fry it in 20 g of butter. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with oregano.

For the sauce, sauté the flour in the remaining butter. Pour in cream, milk, a small amount of water and boil for 3 minutes. Stir in cheese and add salt to taste. Pour 1/3 of the sauce into the bottom of the baking dish. Layer lasagna sheets, vegetables and chicken. Pour over the sauce and bake lasagna with chicken for 40-50 minutes at 180 degrees.

Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes

750 kcal per serving